L'appel du Devoir
by WizzKiz
Summary: Amelie had always wanted to play with the Musketeers, but their Captain had been warning her off for years. Aramis, however, finds that duty can be sweet, as long as his spy will respond to a soldier's advances. (Spans the five years before the first season - NO spoilers!)
1. The Courier

**Author's Note:**

I started writing a Musketeers fic based after the first season, but there were too many stories and meetings that I wanted to tell, so this has jumped five years into the past; before d'Art, before the boys, even before Savoy. Therefore, there are **no spoilers.**

Special hello to any new American readers, and let me tell you that the season only gets better! A welcome back to any of my fellow Brits and Europeans who picked up on the American hype for the boys.

Please enjoy, please review, and if there are any BBC writers reading this: I'm only just down the road! ;D

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

**The Courier  
**

_Assassin_ was the wrong word for it, Amelie couldn't stand that word. It made her feel like she should dramatically sweep her cloak and laugh evilly, and that just wasn't her. There were many terms that had been bandied about since the dawn of time: murderer, executioner, hitman; they were all crude and, most importantly, wrong.

Amelie wasn't paid to kill, she was paid to _listen._ There was a distinct difference that she would happily argue into the wee hours, because she was resolutely not a killer-for-hire, she was a spy.

Yes, occasionally there were accidents and accidentally-on-purpose deaths in her vicinity, but the hapless victims were always the cloak-sweeping kind and found themselves on the darker side of the law.

It was easy to do justice by the law when you _were _the law, but could act without the lengthy debate of courts and kings in the interim.

Still, Amelie was no power-crazed killer and whilst she was a dedicated spy, she made it very clear to her superiors that they did not control her killing strings. It didn't matter to some that the end of every life marked her, that every demise served as a rather depressing anchor in her otherwise thrilling life.

A few brave souls had told her that she resided on the same dark side as the villains, but she brushed the insult aside. She knew her place in the world, and it was firmly on the side of angels.

It just so happened that sometimes angels chose to freefall.

A tempered exhilaration was lacing its way along Amelie's veins but she was very careful not to show it. On the outside, all she appeared as was a tired traveller. A long, bulky cloak covered her light armour of supple leather, and a wide-brimmed hat tipped forward hid her fair curls. Underneath it all, her alert eyes of mismatched blue watched everything.

On the morality scale of light to dark, she was always chosen for the tasks that shone bright but ran with a thick undercurrent of black. It was because, if she chose to, she could look completely unassuming, completely _bright._ Of course, that meant she had to work that much harder to hide the long shadows.

Amelie had been told she had an uncanny ability to blend into a crowd, but in reality it was just because women went unnoticed in 17th century France.

Well, that and the fact that she could slip between disguises only slightly slower than she could alter her façade. Names, faces, personalities; they all nipped at her heels, waiting to be called upon like helpful wolfhounds. For now, though, she was ambiguous. Male, if anyone glanced at her, weary and falling asleep.

Harmless.

Of course, she was actually packing the heat of a pistol on her back and a woefully short sword that made her miss a rapier – but that was the weapon of a master, and she had to appear a novice.

_The sacrifices one does for their art, _she thought with a wry smile.

Amelie's head was cocked to the side, her angled position perfectly funnelling the conversation along the wall to her listening ears.

Angles were important in her line of work, the angles of angels and how they fell.

The man she had been seeking was certainly no angel, light or dark. He was a nobody, a holder of information that she wanted. It had only taken her two hours to find him, her patron had pointed her on the path and, like a bloodhound, she had tracked this man down, down to a grubby tavern in an out-of-the-way village that had a surprising amount of foot traffic.

She effortlessly filtered through the babble of tavern talk to pick up the banal specifics that only she should deem so important. They were courier details; whereabouts, contents, appearance – all things that she could put to good use later.

It had been disgustingly easy.

The man was drunk, or at least on his way there, his secrets spilling like the wine down his shirt. The only problem Amelie could see was that there was another rapt listener, one that was supplying the wine.

The listener himself wasn't the issue, it was that he was interesting Amelie and he shouldn't be. She wasn't told to expect any competition. There hadn't even been any need for scrolled parchment and a candle to make it seem more mysterious – the work had long ago lost that foolish allure.

Too many years and too many deaths had passed for her blood to pump a little faster at the mere mention of a new mission. She was older, wiser, and infinitely more amused by her younger self. Time was where she would have hidden in the shadows and focused solely on her target, but now she hid in plain sight and _enjoyed _the sights.

Which was why the listener was becoming such a problem.

She couldn't face him properly but she _wanted _to, like a tug along her spine. There was something in the listener's bearing that itched the corner of her eye, that coaxed her pulse from its sluggish beat to something more interested. It was irksome and almost distracted her from eavesdropping.

Only almost.

She loved her job too much to do it badly. It was everything she had always wanted, it was what she lived and would die for, the thrills and the angles. Spying was her bittersweet world, and nothing could distract her from-

The listener moved.

Amelie automatically turned to catch it, but she hadn't intended on catching his eye too.

Her mind tripped over itself to take in all she could before needing to look away, and one thing was immediately decided.

The listener was no angel either, but he might have been a god.

Dashing good looks and an enquiring eyebrow rooted her to the spot and finally succeeded in making her pulse race. There was a mixture of curiosity and a challenge on his face that made heated anticipation spread in a languorous wave through her subconscious.

There was a cool analysis happening somewhere in her head, but for now the only word that whispered was _attractive, _and when he turned to regard her properly, the second one was _very._

An entirely unhelpful observation but it certainly part-explained the peripheral tingle, the rest was because he was too relaxed. He was as confident as she, complacent in the power that lay within easy reach, whether it be the breadth of his wide shoulders or the polished rapier that hung at his waist. His hat lay on the table but she didn't look away to glance at it, a single-plume in the band on a wide rim meant for all types of weather.

Possibly a soldier, more likely a mercenary, but he looked entirely too well put-together to be either.

Firelight from the overhead sconces danced over high cheekbones and a strong jaw with an artfully manicured beard. Now that he was angled towards her, she could see that his leather jacket closed at only halfway down his chest, leaving a path of flesh that made her inhale abruptly.

He was way too aware of his own attractiveness.

His hair fell in dark curls to the nape of his neck, the same colour that dusted his jawline, eyebrows, and the smoothed moustache above his lip. There was a surprising lack of scars on his handsome face, which either indicated a noble or someone far too deft with a sword – neither would be good.

Amelie had stared at him for too long, something akin to a smile gleamed at her from dark eyes, and then he slowly returned his attention to the belching fellow across from him- to the _target._

A blush, of all things, raced its way across her cheeks. Not only had she been caught keeping an eye on him, but he had _turned away _from her, as if she was harmless.

Indignant rage flared and died as she remembered that she was supposed to look harmless, that was the whole point of this excursion, one that had conveniently slipped her mind for a whole ten seconds.

Distraction was _her_ forte, not _being _distracted.

She had work to do, it was a good thing that his attention had strayed, it really was.

It just also felt extremely irritating for some reason.

* * *

It wasn't stalking; it was a sight different from stalking because there wasn't any creepiness or murder involved. It was possibly following, but in reality it was just an extension of her task, because the attractive listener could have important information, he could be useful.

Okay, her reasoning was definitely becoming weaker by the second.

She had left before he had, ducking outside to get some fresh air and swap out her hat and cloak for less distinguishable ones. It wasn't as if she had _planned _on following him, but then he had walked straight past without recognising her and her pulse had jump-started the thrill of the chase.

Okay, so maybe it was a bit like stalking, but only because he was a tasty treat that she might feast on – for information.

The courier statistics were safely stored in her head, ready to be used when the time was right. As it happened, she had a lot of time to choose from, so why shouldn't she indulge herself? For all she knew, the listener's name might garner her some more coin in her pay packet.

The desire to know his name burned tellingly brighter than the desire for more coin.

It was probably Eros or something equally obnoxious.

Eros would suit him.

The Eros was sure-footed, knew exactly where he was going as he strode out of the village proper and into a copse of trees along the road. It took her a moment to catch up, the moon was annoyingly bright and painted everything in stark contrast so that she had to stay away from his sightline should he look back.

He didn't.

By the time she had wended her way through fallen branches and the ever-tricky crunchy leaf litter, a small fire was calling her forward. The wind was biting and blowing directly into her face but that meant words would be too, and exultation was enough of a buffer for any uncomfortable feelings caused by the cold ground upon which she lay.

Perhaps she hadn't matured as much as she thought she had to be stalking attractive men when she had to work to do.

But she had time yet.

Two men hovered around the fire, one standing and one sat down. A feathered hat immediately showed her that the standing one was who she sought. The Eros was warming his hands over the flames as he spoke, "Dawn, we have a couple of hours yet."

The breeze garbled his voice but the tone was evident, still relaxed and complacent. Her attraction was dimmed by a sniff of disdain, for not only would these two definitely coincide with her night of supposed ease, but they were going about in such a boring way. As if she was actually going to _let _the courier reach its destination.

_Please._ Amateurs.

Thoroughly disappointed and wondering why the good-looking ones had no brains, she began to edge her way backwards, but stopped when the other man finally spoke from his seat on the ground.

"You took long enough, something catch your eye?"

"Yes, actually," the Eros said as he smiled, and its effect was staggering. All thoughts of disillusionment fled and Amelie fixated upon him once more. Those two words began to repeat a small chorus in her head as the Eros' smile lit his face into charming, if cocky, delight.

That much handsome shouldn't be allowed, it was too dangerous.

"But you came back alone?" The other man drawled in mock-horror, setting off a mental warning bell that Amelie would deal with later, when she wasn't straining to hear words whispered on the wind.

"I had a feeling _la petite ombre_ didn't want to be seen," the Eros replied with a dramatic sigh that would have made her smile if she hadn't felt her stomach drop out at his words. Yes, they had held each other's eye briefly, but _'she'? S_urely he hadn't seen through her ruse that easily?

Her confidence was souring; first caught out, then seen through, what would follow? She wouldn't let the next step be her night's _true _target taken from her. Enough was enough, insanely attractive mystery men or not, there was no room for manoeuvring on the end goal.

Find the courier, acquire the letters, get home safely.

The latter might be up for debate but the former were not. Fleeing the camp's circle of light was simple, they had chosen trees for safety but it gave her ample cover to escape unseen. Back at the stables, her horse gave a soft nicker at her approach and Amelie spent a moment murmuring sweet nothings and checking her mount for signs of distress.

They had ridden hard today and there was still a long night to go, but Amelie had regained her poise. Without staggering smiles to distract her, she was back in her element once more.

This was her world and she knew it well.

Mounting up, she urged her horse into a walk until they were well past the unwary camp, and then they bolted along the road. Amelie's weapons were a reassuring weight along her frame but she didn't want any violence if she could help it. The courier was innocent, ignorant of the darker workings behind his package; he would be spared any pain.

Her thoughts dwelled on the Eros and his friend and she amended the plan, she would pay the courier off to speak to no one and ride as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

It didn't hurt to tie up any loose ends, after all.

Her employer was a well-paying one, funds were an empty luxury that sat in a locked chest and gathered dust, and yet more kept coming. She could never say that the King Louis XIII of France wasn't generous, he was even well-meaning, but the same could not be said for his right-hand, Cardinal Richelieu.

The Cardinal made her skin crawl. It was something in the way that he looked at a person as if they were nothing more than a bug to be squished, but mostly it was because he had his finger on the pulse of Paris and everyone jumped to his tune. Even the King paid him some deference; Richelieu was practically his regent.

No, that was cruel, she liked Louis, he was fair when he wasn't hunting or trying to fill France's coffers, but who could blame him? After his mother's betrayal, he had taken on a ruler's duties with the sometimes harsh influence required of a monarch.

Queen Anne of Austria on the other hand, was generous to a fault. Amelie had seen her grant paroles and stays of executions just because a prisoner had caught her eye, no matter how serious their crime; it was no wonder the Cardinal ran such a tight ship outside of the palace.

Everyone knew that it was Richelieu who could tug on their strings.

Still, they paid her rent, had been doing so for six years now, ever since she had been thrust into the arms of the monarchy when her parents had died to a bandit's greed.

As a young woman with no family left and a title that she didn't want, she had almost become a ward of the state to Richelieu's tender mercies. But lawful justice had been served by the man who took her in and who she now loved as her father.

The grief still lingered like a malaise across her heart. Her life had never been the same, but it hadn't all been terrible. If she hadn't broken into her guardian's office to savour the execution warrants of her parents' murderers, she would never have discovered her talent for sneaking.

Thief wasn't the right word either, Amelie much preferred 'appropriator'.

It wasn't as if she ever stole anything terrible, she just came about documents that were better suited to others. It was no different to eavesdropping, which was just appropriating verbal words instead of written ones.

That's what helped her sleep at night, anyway, that and the ridiculously comfortable four-poster that dominated her bedroom. Amelie liked her comforts, and as she had a wealth of disposable income just waiting to be disposed of, she spent it on things that she liked. Fluffy pillows and soft sheets were just two of those things.

The only tragic part of that bed was how often she was away from it. As an on-tap liaison between the Cardinal and all of the little goings-on in his kingdom, she was rarely at home anymore. Paris had become her heart, a thriving, bustling, slightly dark, organ that she needed to live. Being away hurt, but it made the going back ever the sweeter.

Dawn couldn't come fast enough.

Eventually though, light streaked the horizon and she cursed the small stones that had caused her horse to develop a limp far outside of the town. Quick work with her knife had the offending object out but it meant that she had to continue the rest of her journey on foot whilst her mount recovered.

Suddenly, all of those weapons seemed a tad over-presumptuous.

Shining with a fine layer of perspiration, she reached the shadowed market place where aspiring sellers were already setting up their stalls. It was a wonderful cover for anything unscrupulous, hordes of people shouting their wares and everyone with an eye on their purses; it gave people blinkers to the more nefarious goings on.

Amelie needed full periphery. Her original plan had been to cut the courier off before he even arrived, but with a feeble glow already lighting the streets, she knew she had taken too long.

She silently cursed the Eros and his ridiculous smile and feathered hat. There was no way of knowing, of course, whether her horse would have had a better fate had they set off earlier, but it made her feel better to swear at his memory.

Each passing minute made her twitch, until her eyes roved the same faces over and over again to ensure that none of them were the courier. He was taking too _long, _she should already be on her way by now; this was meant to be an _easy _job.

She added threats to her mental cursing and headed for the drop-off point that would put her in full view of anyone that might be watching. It was situated far enough away from the market that someone wouldn't stroll by, but close enough that the hubbub could still be heard over the grinding of her teeth.

Just one quick look, a glance, really, just to calm her nerves.

A low wall enclosed a small square and she placed a hand on it in preparation to hop over. On the other side was a body, it was the courier's.

Her gorge rose in her throat at the messy splash of blood across the stones. Whoever had killed him had not been careful to hide their tracks. Below the claret, glassy eyes that stared into nothing told her that the courier had been dead a while, but- strange, he still had his bag on him.

She heaved a torn sigh and scanned the surrounding buildings. They were close enough together that she should be safe from gunfire, but the alleys were all open, the angles were against her this time.

It was a risk that she had to take; she had to check that suspiciously left satchel.

Leaning over the wall, she snagged it with her outstretched fingers and pulled back so fast that her back cracked. A feverish tearing revealed letters, documents, a seal she recognised as needing. These were her papers, but why were they here?

An open box at the courier's feet answered her question. The unsuspecting man had carried more than just her interest, but someone else hadn't been as kind as she had planned to be.

She altered that thought, at least three parties had a vested interest in the contents of the courier's satchel, but only two would get what they wanted: she and the murderer. If she didn't know for certain that the Eros had been far behind her, she would have thought him the killer-

The Eros _had_ been behind her.

Directly behind her.

Amelie whirled around and put one hand over her shoulder to brush her gun but then saw that she looked down the barrel of a longer one. The Eros' handsome face was frowning now, that smiling gleam was definitely gone from those… dark brown eyes. Instead, there was something intense about him, he focused on her completely.

It was strangely compelling.

There was no recognition on his face and suspicion didn't manage to make him look any less attractive, unfortunately. Instead, he held his pretty arquebus with the trained hands of an artisan, which made her grimace even as it made her pulse jump eagerly.

"_Arrête._ Throw the satchel towards me and raise your hands very slowly." Without the wind between them, she heard his voice clearly now. It suited him, husky and remarkably lyrical, but tinged with the danger of a man wielding a gun.

Strangely compelling, indeed.

Amelie resolutely kept the amusement out of her voice and tried to sound unassuming – she was supposed to be good at that. "I don't mean any harm; I'm just collecting what's mine."

A sound from the badly angled alley now at her back, and then a cold circle of a pistol pushed against the skin of her neck. The Eros' friend, the other man from the fire, said scornfully, "Yes, and that's why he's dead."

Amelie clenched her jaw and wondered who she had angered to wind up like this. "I didn't kill him."

"Oh," the other man replied sarcastically with a forceful push against her neck which made the Eros lower his arquebus and frown. "Let me guess, he was already like that when you got here?"

"If I said yes, would you believe me?"

The other man appeared in her vision with a snarl on his face and definitely bruised the soft flesh of her throat. "Do not play games with us, _meurtrier_."

He was ugly, more so with the viciousness twisting his features. He hadn't even appreciated her well-natured offer or her humour. This really wasn't going very well.

And Amelie didn't appreciate being called a murderer, even if he _did _think that she was a man.

But then the Eros holstered his arquebus and came closer, pulling his friend's pistol away from her and saying harshly, "Marsac, this is no time for threats."

_Marsac _scowled but the Eros ignored it and looked at her for another intense moment as a considering frown puckered his handsome brow.

Was that a sudden gleam of interest on the Eros' face?

This was definitely her signal to leave.

She pushed the empty satchel against the barrel of the pistol until it faced the sky and braced for Marsac's instinctual pull of the trigger. Both men flinched at the deafening noise and it immediately marked Marsac as incompetent.

_Fool, _she wanted to hiss at him, _you could have killed your attractive friend as well as yourself._

It was only because she was more concerned with not spilling any blood that the three of them remained unharmed.

With one foot against the low wall, she surged through the pair with the bundle of papers against her chest and free-wheeled past when they fell backwards and grabbed for her. The Eros snagged her cloak but she released it with a flick of her nail and scarpered without the extra weight holding her down.

Breathlessly, she weaved through buildings, dashed back through the market, swapped her hat for another, and then tucked the papers inside her jacket. Once again, she was just another citizen.

Except that her feminine curves were a little more obvious without a cloak to hide them. An appropriated bed-sheet would have to do in the meantime, and it succeeded in making her look even more poor and weary than she had before.

She was truly sinking in the world.

Still, delight was flickering inside of her and the satisfaction of a job well done made her smile. She had her papers, the opposing party didn't, and most everyone had escaped unscathed – she was practically home free. Just an idle ride back to Paris and then the whole day was hers to do with as she wished.

Sleep, the day definitely called for sleep.

As long as her dreams didn't centre on dashing musketmen who saw through her disguises far, _far, _too easily with a raised eyebrow and a glimmer of a staggering smile.

He was definitely Eros.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I hope you enjoyed it, _please _review and let me know what you thought - I love hearing from people! (Shout out to SirLancelotTheBrave for inspiring me to write and post, her fics are _amazing!_)

This is going to run alongside my Avengers fic, '_Chaotic Howling_', so I'll now be publishing two times a week. Feel free to poke/message me if I'm taking too long between posting, I respond well to encouragement and exclamation marks.

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	2. The Eros

**Author's Note:**

Aramis looks at the sunshine, and he sees happiness! Marsac looks at the sunshine, and he sees exhaustion. Amelie looks at the sunshine, and she sees shadows; but now there's sunlight under her palms and it burns so wonderfully.

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO**

**The Eros**

Aramis tuned out Marsac's grumbling and focused on the bright, pleasant sunlight that seemed inappropriate for their state of affairs.

They had been riding for over two hours, starting off for Paris even later than the plan had been after they had to deal with the courier's body and delivered him to the proper authorities. Unfortunately, that was them, which was why they were also escorting a cart with the dearly departed in it.

Aramis wasn't concerned though; death was an unfortunately familiar concept to him nowadays. Ever since he had joined the Musketeers a scant few years ago, he had dealt with far too much of the darker side of the law.

That thought brought him to the one thing that kept playing on his mind: _la petite ombre_, their little shadow.

He knew that she had been a woman, despite Marsac's insistence otherwise and her obvious efforts to hide her gender. His trained eye would never miss the delicate, high cheeks or the dainty slope of her nose – or, indeed, the way her surprisingly well-crafted armour clung to her curves.

It had unsettled him when he had realised that he was being watched in the tavern, and it was only because of the way his neck had prickled that he had looked up just as his watcher turned to face him. She hadn't looked away and at first he had thought that she was challenging him, but then her eyes had left a trail of fire down his torso that had forced him to look away to hide his smile.

A lady, pretending to be a man, in an out-of-the-way inn, eavesdropping on things that she had no business dealing with.

It was fascinating.

"_Mon Dieu_," Marsac interrupted his enchanted musings quite scathingly, "You thought _she _was attractive, didn't you?"

"She was."

Marsac gave him an infuriated gape at his matter-of-fact reply. "Not only did she take the papers, but she killed the courier too."

"And whilst that is inexcusable if she did so, if she was a killer would she not have killed us too?"

"She almost did," Marsac snapped bitterly, and then sighed when he didn't deign him with a reply. "Why are you such a fool for a pretty face, Aramis?"

"It is a curse, _mon ami, _but I bear it well."

He was responded with a snort of derision and then Marsac pulled back to check on the cart's valiant steed, a bedraggled donkey who was no more concerned with haste than Aramis was.

It was a lovely day despite the death and, yes, Captain Treville would have his hide for losing the papers, but returning to Paris meant returning to warm beds and warmer bed-partners – that tended to lighten any potentially fatal prospects.

And why would he dwell on such dire subjects as failure when he could cast his mind back to see two alert eyes of differing blue, one light and one dark?

He had no idea why she had been there, certainly none as to why she needed the same papers as they. If he hadn't seen the pistol on her back he might have assumed that she was a noble, certainly the way she spoke lent credence to that, but the leather armour and the weapons were too indicative of an assassin.

Surely not, she was far too beautiful for something as horrendous as that.

_Bah, _now he had disappointed himself.

He doubted that he would ever see her again, or even if he did, he wasn't sure he would instantly identify her. It had taken until he stepped close and saw that same interested gaze that left heat spots for him to recognise her.

It had irked him when Marsac had threatened her so grotesquely, even if she was a thief or, god forbid, a killer, she didn't deserve the bruise that would surely form on her slender neck.

Such a pity to mar something so pretty.

"_Parbleu_, Marsac, take more care in future."

"If you mention the gun to me one more time, I swear I will shoot you." Aramis remained tactfully silent but Marsac was woefully resolute. "She _killed _a man, Aramis. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she's any less dangerous."

No, that flash of fire on her face accompanied with the dignified wrinkle of her nose had told him just how confident she was in herself. Even the smile that had ever-so-slightly tilted her lips when he had recognised her told him that she was more than dangerous.

Captivatingly so.

He was fairly certain that there was something suicidal in hoping to see her again, but the heart wants what it wants, and he always gave into it. Life might career from peak to trough living like that, but at least the highs were glorious, even if the lows were devastating.

A peak was coming, he was sure of it. He could feel it in his bones.

"Ah, Paris. My one true love."

Marsac brought his horse up alongside him again and surveyed the city with distasteful expression on his face. "You say that every time."

"That's because it's the truth. Everything is bright when Paris is in sight, _mon ami._"

Marsac gave him an unimpressed look and then looked back at their deathly silent passenger with a coin between his fingers. "Flip you for who goes to Treville first?"

Aramis didn't mind either way, but it did terrible things for the reputation to be seen in the same company as a dead person, and he had hopeful plans for tonight. "Heads… Luck is ever on my side, my god smiles upon me."

"Mine spits," Marsac grumbled and led the ambivalent donkey towards the morgue. Soon, they disappeared into the throng and Aramis could take his first deep breath of city air.

_Ah, _it felt like home.

It was, it had been ever since he had left his home village on a revenge mission and ended up enlisting with the Musketeers. It was, perhaps, the best decision he had ever made. Loyalty ran in his blood and it meant more to him than anything, except, possibly, love, but that was its own form of loyalty too.

Marsac was too jaded, endlessly pessimistic, he saw the Musketeers as a means to an end, a way to spend a life. He didn't see that the order _was _life, it gave and it taketh away as the King saw fit, and that was as it should be, it was right.

Aramis, on the other hand, was positively quixotic; he liked to see the good in everything, from wealthy widows to missish maids. It made no difference to him as long as he was out of their chambers before anyone noticed he was there.

Lately, he had garnered the unfortunate nickname of ''Thief'' from his brothers-in-arms. It was an annoying misnomer, for he didn't steal anything – the ladies were always very forthcoming in their generosity and far be it from him to ever demand anything that wasn't given freely.

Their husbands and fathers didn't tend to see it that way though, and too often had he escaped into the training yard like a cutpurse, out-of-breath and hiding from an irate man determined to skin him alive – and so the nickname had stuck.

Calls of it rang out as he entered the garrison after stabling his horse. A friendly duel almost distracted him but he managed to regretfully shake his head and arrange for another time. There was still work to do and Marsac would only end up riling the Captain if anyone other than he told him the news.

Marsac had a talent for rubbing people up the wrong way; it was one of the few things he disliked in his friend. But like the white to Marsac's black, Aramis tried to accommodate everyone, which was why the Captain put them together so much. They nearly always completed their tasks together, they were known for it.

Except this time.

Lost the papers to a woman... Actually, there was no need to mention that part, it wasn't important.

He had his pride to think of, after all.

Aramis greatly respected his Captain; he was the one who had encouraged him to join the Musketeers when empty revenge had left him feeling listless. Although, Aramis yearned for friends that saw the order as he did. He understood why he was always paired with Marsac, it kept his friend safe when people wanted to kill him for his vile tongue.

In hindsight, too much of their missions were normally spent excusing Marsac.

The door to Treville's office was almost always kept open so he swept in as he usually did, stopping short when he saw a gown of navy perched on one of the chairs facing the Captain's desk.

Feminine company was not a sight he had expected to see.

"My apologies, Captain, I didn't realise you had guests." He bowed and tried to take his leave but Treville sighed and beckoned him forward with one exasperated hand.

The lady hadn't turned to look at him and so all he saw were blonde curls tumbling down a straight spine. The dress was exquisite, he knew without seeing that it would be threaded with gold or some sort of elegant decoration – no normal woman would be at the Musketeers' headquarters.

As he approached, he inhaled the scents of chill breeze and gunpowder. The latter must have been Treville and so the tantalising former would belong to the lady, which struck him as delightfully odd. He would have expected perfume or some other artificial smell, not nature; beautiful in its simplicity.

"I came to bring you word of the papers, Captain, Marsac has taken a detour to the, er, Bastille."

He had stopped a respectable distance from the pair and so he saw the sudden tightening of the lady's shoulders and the way that she glanced at Treville to then whirl around and face him. Fair curls framed a pretty face that –

He had seen only that morning.

That same trail of heat began to flare along his cheekbones to tingle at his chest, as his own eyes noted the startling familiars. The graceful line of her neck marred with a purple smudge slightly hidden by hair, dark lashes outliniing multi-hued azure that glinted with disbelief and mischief.

He had seen those alert eyes evaluate him twice, and now was the third.

The heat was addictive.

She smiled something wicked and demurely looked at him from under her brows, a sight that he was fairly certain had made his heart stop beating.

"Monsieur, we meet again, _quelle chance_."

"Amelie," Treville said in what definitely sounded like a reprimand. _Amelie_ flashed him another sly glance before turning back to the Captain. Aramis was fairly certain that he had almost been solicited by the female that had dominated his thoughts for the past few hours.

He wasn't going to let that just pass him by.

"You have me at a disadvantage, mademoiselle," he murmured, and delighted at seeing her smile and slide him another look.

Certainly solicited.

"Aramis," Treville sighed, in what was definitely another reprimand.

"Don't be hard on him," she said as she brazenly leaned forward to rummage through some papers on Treville's desk. "We're both at a loss at the moment."

"Yes," he added, catching sight of one of the seals he had seen clasped to her chest earlier. "An explanation would be nice, Captain."

Treville's jaw twitched in a grimace and Aramis thought it was because of Amelie's snooping, but the man didn't even seem to notice it and instead looked straight at him, a contrite tone to his voice. "I owe you an apology, Aramis. I sent Amelie after the documents after you didn't return when I expected."

"No," Aramis replied slowly, a little unsure as to what was happening. He had been expecting a rap on the knuckles and a blistering argument from Marsac, not _this. _Certainly not the blue-eyed mystery sat sedately by his side as she rifled through things that he wasn't even allowed to glance at. "We stayed overlong at the Comte's, but we would have been there in time."

Amelie gave a delicate snort of disdain that made him look down in surprise. Was she mocking him because she reached the courier before he did? Surely not.

"Yes, well," Treville continued bashfully, "I had to be sure."

Aramis was at a complete loss. He looked between them both and asked haltingly, "So you didn't kill the courier?"

"I told you I didn't, I'm not an assassin," she replied absent-mindedly, licking a thumb as she stacked sheets.

Relief shocked him at the hint of her disgust at the word 'assassin', but he kept it from showing. She had well and truly fascinated him, but it wouldn't do to show his hand too early, especially with Treville watching him like a hawk for some reason.

"You'll forgive me, mademoiselle, if the scene looked a little too conspicuous."

Amelie didn't look up at his provoking tone; his overly-polite words didn't even raise a smile this time. He was rather disappointed. Instead, she responded dismissively, "If you hadn't camped outside of the village for so long then maybe he wouldn't have died."

He frowned and looked up to see Treville regarding the ceiling and running a hand through his short hair. "_Pardonez-moi_, did you _follow _me?"

"You walked right past and didn't see me; I wanted to check you weren't a threat."

Aramis felt mildly insulted by that. Not only because of the goad in _her _voice this time, but because she had measured him and found him _wanting. _He, who could best anyone in Paris at the musket and most people with the rapier, had been found wanting.

He felt a chill in the air, as if his god had stopped smiling upon him all of a sudden.

The silence lasted a full second before Treville announced with some reluctance that he needed to complete the papers in Amelie's hands and then he walked out of the room. The Captain hesitated for a moment and gave them both a meaningful glance, but Amelie seemed to ignore it, so Aramis did too.

When Treville had finally gone, Aramis said under his breath, "Why didn't you let me know who you were? You needn't have run then."

Amelie finally looked up at him with a frown puckering her brow; coupled with the full line of her lips it appeared enchanting rather than indifferent. "I had no idea who you were, you were just an obstacle."

"An _obstacle?"_ he asked in disbelief, and he could swear that flame shimmered in her eyes again for a moment.

"Yes, to be _mounted_."

Heat kicked him in the gut when she accompanied that loaded word with a coy tilt of her lips, and then it disappeared as the Captain strode back in and counted out numbers that she responded in kind to, as if she hadn't just flipped his stomach and made him inhale a breath that had him blissed out on her fresh scent.

He was well and truly fascinated.

She looked up at him again, all innocence and clear-faced, and then he realised that Treville was talking to him.

"-from the Bastille?"

He must be talking about Marsac. "Any moment now, I imagine."

Amelie stiffened and ran a tentative hand over her neck, and the sight made him bristle. "_Je suis désolé, _mademoiselle. My friend tends to run a little hot-headed-"

She threw him a look that said _'stop'_ and he did so immediately, realising too late that she hadn't told Treville about it. The 'why' became obvious when the Captain straightened like a hunter that had sighted prey and said dangerously, "What did Marsac do?"

"Nothing terrible, he just termed me a murderer but in his defence, I did look like one. They both reacted as would be expected of them, _avec intégrité_, never fear." Her voice was light and confident, not an iota of the lie on her face.

Marsac had responded dreadfully, threatening ladies was one thing but to fire his gun in a crowded place with a potential criminal nearby was foolhardy.

And yet, Amelie had kept them safe from Treville's wrath without even knowing them, she had shown allegiance where none was required. She was beautiful, quick, and loyal.

He watched her with nothing less than astonishment, and as soon as Treville looked away, she winked at him.

He was hers from that moment.

* * *

If Aramis kept looking at her like _that _then she was going to have to leave the room. There were already two points of pink on her cheeks that she couldn't quite hide and his attention was making it even more difficult.

His focus was intense like the sun and there was a little less air in the room with every one of his smiles.

He was truly the Eros that she had named him, except that Aramis suited him far better, even if he did wield an arquebus like the Greek god of love wielded a bow.

Amelie was actually flustered, _flustered, _like a maid that had never been kissed.

"-time did you arrive?"

"Time?" she stammered, and tried ineffectually to block Aramis out of her periphery. "Oh, dawn?"

"I thought you reached the courier at dawn?" The Captain of the Musketeers frowned at her, and she had to survey every bond they shared to keep him from realising that it was _Aramis _that had finally succeeded in distracting her from a task.

She tugged on the ward's bond and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry, what are we talking about?"

Captain Treville, her protector, patron, guardian, and father-figure, softened immediately, but then he looked at Aramis and hardened. "Aramis, wait outside."

From the corner of her eye she saw the poor Musketeer go from shock, to confusion, to reluctant acceptance; it made her hide a smile. Whether he knew it or not, his Captain was the man who had saved her from Richelieu's wrath and taken her in when the world had abandoned her.

The laws were not kind to young women with coin in their coffers, but not even the Cardinal could stand against Jean de Treville, the Captain of the Musketeers, who had saved her once already, a week before the court session that would determine her future.

But that first time, he had saved her from certain death, which was only slightly less terrifying than the Cardinal had been.

Six years ago, on a regular streak of disobedience, she had crept out of her family home in the dead of night and ridden over the lands that would one day belong to her; but a band of murderers had ensured that the day had come far too soon, as they killed her parents and made off with their treasures.

With her ancestral home a burning backdrop to her escape, she had found a lone Musketeer on the road and alerted him to a straggler that had been about to shoot him. Amelie had expected a small gratitude and a farewell, she had not expected the Musketeer to be the Captain who would hunt every one of the bandits down and see her heritage restored.

She hadn't wanted it; it was a memory too painful to bear, as if she had stolen it in the dead of night, just as she had stolen her life on a simple act of rebelliousness.

Treville, however, was remarkably insistent, and volunteered to hold her estate in escrow until the day she came of age, protecting her from the monarchy's greedy hands. That day had come and gone too, and yet here they still were; she the ward of a man who hadn't planned on children, and he the guardian of a woman who hadn't planned on being a spy.

It was funny how duty might affect one's plans, but loyalty was what transformed it from duty to love.

"No, it's fine," she said half-over her shoulder, pleased when Aramis swayed from his Captain's order and stopped for her. Treville's eyes narrowed and she realised that she was toeing a dangerous line.

There was a reason he had never let her mingle with his men, that he encouraged her long trips and tasks away. The familiar reprimand that she had heard when he spoke to Aramis coupled with the suspicion now appearing on his face, told her that she was about to hear the reason again.

_Never cross the line of duty._

It was time to leave.

"Can we do this another time? I've been up since dawn yesterday."

Amelie wasn't lying, but the weariness was put upon. She could live in the saddle for days if she had to, but she wouldn't turn aside her bed or some snatched hours of sleep right now. Especially if it meant that she could escape a possible lecture.

Of course, the eyes on her spine might have had something to do with how eager she was to escape her guardian's gaze.

There was a Musketeer to play with, and she wouldn't mind a drink or two.

Suddenly a few days holiday seemed like far too little, and yet duty was duty.

"I'll be here come morning, _je promets_." She rose and leaned forward to peck the man she called 'father' on the cheek, smiling when she saw the murderous look he sent Aramis over her shoulder. "It was bound to come out sooner or later."

"Why do I feel you're enjoying this more than I?" he growled, but it was good-natured and affectionate beneath the gruffness.

"Because I am," she said with a fond smile. "I'll take care of it."

He looked at her as if he could hear the lewd insinuation that she wanted to make, that handling Musketeers was something she had always wanted to do, and the look was edged with the threat of a curfew.

She was a woman grown, but she turned tail and ushered the stunned Aramis out of the office anyway. He tried to speak and she shook her head, murmuring, "Ears."

"Ah." He seemed to understand as one of his small but still stunning smiles appeared and she had to force herself to continue walking down the stairs.

Stepping through the Musketeer's yard she was no one, there was no recognition for her here, except on Aramis' far too attractive face. There was a question that she had to ask before she forgot herself, before her free time was up and she went away again.

As she always did.

"How did you know it was me?"

Aramis grinned at her, another jump to her pulse, and strolled alongside as they wandered the streets of Paris. "I never forget a pretty face."

"Charmer," she replied with a laugh, suddenly understanding the reprimand and look of wrath on their Captain's face. It also made sense why that little alarm bell had gone off earlier when Marsac had been surprised.

Aramis was a flirt.

Eros, indeed.

"I speak the truth, Mademoiselle Amelie," he remarked, an honest cast to his respectful nod which made her smirk. The way he said her name was almost reverent and she couldn't stop herself from savouring the sound.

It was difficult to distance yourself from shameless flirting when it was done so charmingly.

"To all the women of France, I'm sure."

He considered for a moment and then tilted his head. "I can never lie to a lady."

"Is that so?" she asked mischievously, and enjoyed the slight paling underneath his tan skin. _Say a silly thing, Aramis. _"Have you _toured _Paris, seen all of its beauties?"

He took a measured breath and then hesitated for a moment. "Paris has many delights but none quite as beautiful as those in front of me."

She gave a startled laugh and gaped at him. "You said you can't lie!"

"I can't."

Amelie eyed him dubiously but couldn't help the smile that matched his. He was a terror, far too sure of himself and far, _far _too charismatic.

And, perhaps, in possession of far too clever a tongue.

"Does Paris strike you anew each time you see it?"

He nodded seriously. "It takes my breath away with every blink."

She hummed in confirmed suspicion. Aramis was a romantic; it was so startlingly obvious that it was as if he blazed with it. It wouldn't surprise her if he thought every woman was more beautiful than the last. It meant that he was technically telling the truth.

How charming.

"You must have a happy soul, Aramis."

"My heart rides on wings, mademoiselle."

That simple statement struck her quite particularly, concerned as she was with the angles of angels. Did his heart that rode on wings choose to freefall, as she did, or was he steady and tedious?

She stopped and he happily subjected himself to her considering stare. He stood with his feet apart, confidence written in every line of his muscled body. In one smooth motion, he swept a small bow and drew his hat from his head.

It was practiced, so very practiced, but its effect was still swoon-worthy.

That ever-present amusement in his eyes transformed his genteel nod into one that made her blood heat. He held his ridiculous feathered hat in one hand and said gracefully, "I have not yet thanked you for keeping Marsac's misdeeds from the Captain."

Amelie could tell that this was just a segue into something else, but she obliged this strangely courteous exchange. She had a feeling that she was being pursued.

It was definitely working.

"_Soyez le bienvenu._ Musketeers look out for one another."

He focused on her so intently that she felt it to her toes and when he spoke, his voice was wondering, warm, and low. "Indeed, they do… Would you like a drink, Amelie?"

"I would love one, Aramis."

The freefall beckoned, and it did so with a staggering smile.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Thank you for reading, _please _continue to review and favourite and such, every single one of you is wonderful!

I have no idea how prompts work or anything, but if you have any ideas or desires then please let me know and I'll see if I can incorporate them. Even if it's for things and characters that haven't appeared _yet, _just drop me a line!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	3. The Tide

**Author's Note:**

When Amelie finds that duty threatens to take her from diversion too soon, she considers tying them together and hopes that the knot doesn't fray. Aramis opens his eyes to a world that lay right on top of the one he knows, and there's more in the stables than nameless horses - some of them have even been on more adventures than the soldiers have.

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE**

**The Tide**

"Is this not a bit, ah, low-brow for you?"

Amelie propped her hands on her hips and regarded the concerned Musketeer across from her. They had wandered to the tavern nearest to the garrison and, amusingly, Aramis was a little tense. As they stood in the street, no less than three people walked by and greeted him by name.

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. "How often have you come here, Aramis?"

He opened his mouth and looked as if he was about to downplay it, but then two Musketeers passed and clapped him on the shoulder. He winced in defeat. "Well, a few times, I admit."

"And how many times do you think I have been here?"

Aramis shook his head in instant denial and then noticed the small smile that she couldn't help from showing. His face changed to one of considered shock. "_Non, c'est vrai?_ You've been here, before, in disguise?"

She sauntered ahead and threw him a smirk over her shoulder as she entered the unfamiliar tavern. Often had she wanted to venture inside, to mingle with the Musketeers, but duty – and Treville's warnings – had always gotten in the way.

It was hard to form connections to people when there was only scant time to spend with them, harder still when they found out that what kept the time so short was spying for the crown.

Nobody had ever thought to ask what exactly she did, and the need for secrecy had kept her isolated. But Aramis was a Musketeer, he had seen her with stolen papers in her hands, and still he followed her into the building.

She couldn't restrain her smile as she teased, "Shall I show you where I usually sit?"

"Yes," he murmured eagerly near her ear, her spine sparking where he brushed against it. The reaction wasn't entirely unexpected; she should have known that she would succumb to the attractive man's charms.

He was intense and interesting, despite his unfavourable friendship with Marsac; but perhaps that just showed the depth of his loyalty, that he shouldered his friend's burdens so that neither stood alone.

She wondered what that felt like, and imagined it might feel a little like sparks along the spine.

She hummed in delight and then pursed her lips in pretended consideration. "On second thought…"

"No, no second thoughts."

"No?"

They were in the tavern proper now, and suddenly the wall was at her back and Aramis was at her front. The babble faded away, just as it had when she had first seen him. The firelight still did wonderful things with the sharp planes of his face and he looked down the few inches that separated them, his voice low and coaxing, "No."

He wasn't quite crowding her, but his intentions were enjoyably obvious. Aramis was too much the gentleman to force anything, but she had encouraged him enough that he knew she wouldn't turn his flirtatious nature away.

Life had begun to sparkle in its joyful entirety and everything seemed a little brighter with him in it – how could she turn from that? She, who craved thrills and companionship, and yet laid her life on the line for France nearly every day, just as he did.

His gaze sizzled, like a pair of small fires that burned along with his smouldering smile. Her heart winged in her chest, a fluttering thing that enjoyed the chase far more than it should, and yet Aramis had already run her to ground.

Although not quite yet. The door had opened and Serge, the only other Musketeer who knew her, stood in its wake and looked about.

"It's time for me to fly," she murmured, unable to stop from rising towards Aramis and almost brushing his lips with hers.

"You are a cruel mistress," he breathed, each word making her hold back a shiver.

Serge had seen them, a frown marring his weathered brow as he called, "Mad'moiselle, messenger for ya, from Melun."

Amelie waved him off and then realised that Aramis' hands were now quite proprietarily on her hips, as if hoping she wouldn't move. Looking down and then back up at him again, she made a quick and incredibly easy decision that she had never made before. "You can come with me, if you'd like?"

He pulled back in surprise, and yet his hands gripped her a little tighter as he asked, "But Treville, _c'est peu convenable_?"

With Aramis so tantalisingly close, she really couldn't care less about what her one-time-guardian would say if he knew that she was quite literally rubbing shoulders with his most flirtatious Musketeer. She was a free woman and there was an opportunity here that she had never been able to take advantage of before.

She wouldn't answer the question that Aramis was actually asking, 'what would Treville say', because he wouldn't like it, so she gave him another truth instead. "A 'messenger' means a simple task, only to Melun. We could be back by morning."

Thoughts tore across his face so expressively that she grinned as he searched her eyes for something. Aramis was a man at war with himself, and it was adorable. His romantic's heart couldn't let her go just yet but she was evidently important to his Captain. Captivating lust warred with admirable duty and she knew the battle well.

Amelie wondered whether Aramis' rebellious streak was quite as wide as hers.

She fervently hoped that it was.

He took a deep breath and then his smile was staggering in its answer. "Why do I get the feeling that sudden departures are normal for you?"

She tipped her head against the wall and sighed happily at his acceptance – more sparks along her spine. Treville might disavow him if word got out that the soldier had gone along with the spy, but what their Captain didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Of course, Treville, the father, might castrate the man that had gone along with the daughter.

It was a good thing that Amelie had always been good at keeping secrets.

"They are," she replied dramatically. "I feel I am much like the wind. Here and gone, a disaster in my wake."

Aramis leaned forward and his well-trimmed beard tickled her throat. "No, I believe you are the tide: constant in your comings and goings, and completely _captivante_."

His charms were ridiculously addictive.

She smiled at the ceiling but, frustratingly, he resisted actually touching her neck. "You can come, but none of that, I have work to do."

"Ah, so when _you _need to work, it's all business?"

"I'm always business, Aramis."

"Then it will be a pleasure doing business with you, Amelie."

She finally faced him and laughed at his faux-innocent double-entendre. He was like nothing she had ever encountered before and she found she couldn't quite let him out of her sight just yet, either. "Do you know, you might be the first interesting thing I've seen in five years."

"Oh, mademoiselle," he said in genuine concern, "Five years is far too long."

"Mm, isn't it just?" Amelie replied softly, and then her sigh was a little reluctant. "But duty calls."

"I want to say damn duty," he muttered, and his grimace was sincere enough to make hot delight burst through her.

"But you would never lie to a lady."

"No." He so very nearly kissed her, and smiled teasingly when she inhaled eagerly. "Duty calls."

"Cruel."

The word was only just out and then he silenced her mouth with his. He tasted of red wine and honey and the thrill of freefalling. He smelled of leather and well-oiled muskets, a heady musk that spiralled into her nose with every caught breath. His fingers held her hips tight against him as her own fluttered against his leather-bound chest.

That was an interesting place to keep a dagger, and it reminded her of the task at hand- at _work. _She drew the blade half out and Aramis' lips parted against hers in a small exhalation of surprise.

"_Devoir,_" she breathed.

"_Appels,_" he finished half-heartedly, but didn't let her go until she deliberately slipped from his grasp. Her waist felt significantly cooler without his hands and the urge to submit to distraction was almost overpowering.

But Serge hadn't left.

The aged Musketeer hovered by the door with a damning expression on his face, which Aramis noticed a second after she did. He stiffened as they walked towards the old man and she stopped them both from walking away.

"Not a word, Serge."

"Yes, Amelie," he answered without hesitation and she threw Aramis a relieved look.

"I wasn't sure if that would work," she whispered, and Aramis stared at her in horrified disbelief. "What? He likes me, but I think he's been here longer than I've been alive."

He raised his eyebrows in grudging acceptance. "_Bon point_."

Serge was the essential groundskeeper of the garrison, the watcher of the yard and the ruler of the stable boys. When she was younger and underfoot, he would regale her with tales of his time as an active Musketeer. Eventually, the man who guarded the horses had noticed her strange comings and goings, and she had needed someone to convey her messages to Treville.

Serge was perfect, dedicated to the order, and Amelie had quickly grown attached to the bumbling man.

But keeping her spying secret was one thing; her illicit relations were an entirely different kettle of fish.

Serge glared at Aramis but then looked fondly at her, and she thought that she might just get away with this. "What'll I tell the Captain, Amelie?"

"He needed something delivered?"

She had to repeat herself loudly before he blinked in realisation and said, "Oh, yeah, here ya go."

Serge handed over two envelopes, both very different from each other. The one addressed to her she passed to Aramis, the one without a name she kept for herself.

"Is this for me?" Aramis asked in quiet astonishment as Serge walked away, his job done for the night.

Amelie hummed an absent-minded assent as she worked her nail under the delicate wax seal without damaging it. She always liked to know what exactly it was that she was delivering and told herself it was self-preservation and not nosiness. "Where are we off to?"

Aramis looked at her for a moment, his surprise obvious as he slowly put his feathered hat back onto his head. The instructions were for her, the task was for her, but in a way it had made a decision for her.

For years she had been content to work single-mindedly, to pay her life to the crown after her parents' death, but five years was a long time to grieve. Her laziness the night before was testament to how relaxed she had become, how much she had changed from the determined girl she had once been.

She longed for adventure but she longed for adventu_rers _too, for friends and family and people that didn't talk to her just because she had information they needed, or pasted fake smiles on their faces because they were both spying for their respective courts.

Intrigue was fun, but it wasn't wholesome. It darkened her with every task she undertook, made the angles seem a little more unforgiving each time.

With a task in one hand and Aramis brushing against the other, the angles seemed infinitely more favourable.

The Captain was trying to warn her off but, for the first time in her life, her duty might run alongside another's.

Amelie was suddenly greedy for red wine and honey.

* * *

Aramis held a spy's missive in his hand and Amelie's trust astounded him. It was Treville's order that would send her away tonight, he was sure of it, and the 'why' was not very hard to guess.

His Captain did not want a 'Thief' around his spy.

Or was it something more than that? Amelie glowed so very brightly and it hadn't seemed that strange for her to hug Treville – women tended to be of a tactile nature, one that he often exploited for his own ends – but then there was the murmured conversation that he couldn't quite catch and the way she had rifled through confidential documents without reprimand.

If he hadn't known that Captain Treville was sadly widowed and had never had any children, he would have thought that the two were related. But perhaps Amelie was just bright enough to light even the darkest people, and Treville was not particularly dark to begin with.

Yes, he must just be fond of her, and she of him, and the two worked together to keep France safe from threats of the frontline Musketeer variety as well as the underground spying one.

He had never known that Treville was involved in such things, but it made him feel better to know that Amelie was working with them, rather than Cardinal Richelieu.

Aramis was a devout soldier but even he disliked the Cardinal and his obnoxious Red Guards who made it their day's work to hinder the Musketeers. Why, he had no idea, they were all supposed to be fighting for France's safety, and yet he imagined it had something to do with rumours of Richelieu's lust for power.

He had never understood that. He lusted for women, pretty and interesting; or adventure, fun and thrilling; but never power, greed and consuming.

He wondered what Amelie lusted for, whether she risked her life for the love of it or because it was a means to an end, like Marsac. The smile on her face when she had run from him that morning said that she enjoyed every moment, and her eyes had blazed with fire with both a gun and he at her throat.

Perhaps she was as thrill-hungry as he sometimes was, and funnelled it into work, into the Musketeers, into France.

But she was stronger than he, for where he had so nearly lost himself to the oblivion of her sighing smiles, she had wound duty so very tightly about herself.

And she was bringing him along with it.

A new sort of contentment exploded in his chest and it was caused by Amelie. She would not turn him away when the days grew too long and the nightly visits too few, she understood that France's needs were as important as their own, if not more so.

Too often had _work _interfered with a lover's passion, but perhaps, with her, the two would be one and the same.

As she sneakily read the missive that wasn't meant for her, he realised that she tempered even spying with her own brand of mischief – she was magnificent.

The decision to go along with her tonight had been at once compellingly easy and distressingly difficult. It was not just the overwhelming urge to stay plastered to her side and try to evoke that dazzling smile he was beginning to adore, but seeing her dressed in her pretty gown and without her weapons had made him feel protective.

Something about the stubborn line of her chin told him that she would not appreciate hearing that.

But it wasn't in Aramis to withdraw from a lady in need, certainly not one that beckoned him so and thought nothing of leaving Paris in the setting sun with naught but a piece of parchment in hand.

He found himself interested in both the spy and her spying, and that was new to him.

"Hey," she spoke muffled, her tongue laving the wax to make it stick to the parchment again. There was uncertainty on her face, and her eyes flicked in concern from him to the open letter in his hand. "You don't have to come."

"No, it's not that," he replied immediately, and saw the way her shoulders relaxed. It occurred to him that perhaps his easy acceptance of her work had surprised her, but it wasn't without thought that he had done so. If she hadn't been as disgusted as he at the thought of being an assassin, he would have been concerned, for he did not condone senseless killing, even if it was for the sake of France. "I want to see what it is that you do."

She laughed in surprise. "It's not exactly a merchant's life."

No, it wasn't, it was dangerous, like his, and that was fascinating.

Just like her trust in him.

"If you're willing to show me, I am honoured to accept."

Something that might have been a blush tinted her cheeks. "Well, you'd be the first."

"The first to accept?"

"The first to see," she said quietly, nervously folding and unfolding the letter until it disappeared in a sleight-of-hand trick that he would have to remember. Amelie was not only putting her faith in him to keep her work quiet, but also allowing him to be by her side as she did it.

"Consider me doubly honoured, then."

Her smile was like the sun through a blanket of clouds and only affirmed his decision to accompany her. He would taste a spy's life and hopefully the spy herself, for his heart yearned and he was ever a slave to it.

The paper in his hands was suddenly in hers and she scanned it quickly before giving it back to him, a playful tilt to her lips as she pretended that she had never taken it.

"I fear you are too good at that," he remarked good-naturedly, and she hooked her arm through his and urged him forwards.

"Old habits, I'm afraid."

"Are we heading for the stables?"

"Yes, unless you'd like to walk?" Her question was very lightly threaded with sarcasm and she glanced impishly up at him when he raised an eyebrow. "Yes, the Musketeers' stables."

"Do you mean to tell me that you've been using the same horses as I, and I never even knew?"

"_Bien sûr que non_," she replied scornfully. "I get the best pick of the bunch."

Joy lit his laughter into something bright and happy and it fuelled him as she led him down alleys that he wouldn't walk down at this time of night, and through a door into the stables that he had not known existed.

"Is this your door?"

"It's yours now, too," she said with a smile, and his chest tightened pleasantly.

Amelie left his side far too easily to coo at the horses and stroke their noses. He leaned against the wall to watch her as she ferreted in cloth sacks to brandish treats, murmuring softly to the beasts as she fed them.

She stilled with a blush riding on her cheeks when she remembered that he was there. It enchanted him.

"What? I like horses."

He stepped forward to the one horse that had watched him since he entered and finally pulled the apple from his pocket to offer his favourite. She beamed delightedly when he replied, "So do I."

Amelie leaned around to look the animal over and tease, "Lance? I can't imagine you tilting, Aramis."

"No?" He answered her playful tone with one of his own, "I always thought I would look quite dashing in a suit of armour, and Lance is a fantastic horse."

"I know, I had to ride him last month."

He paused and cast his mind back, his mouth opening in surprise. "_That _was where he was! I waited a week for him to return, Serge told me he was getting re-shoed."

"He was, he bore me safely there and back again without resting, it was the least I could do."

He looked back at his faithful steed with a wondering look and patted him on the neck. "Well done, m'sieur, I suppose I can forgive you for running out on me, then."

Amelie disappeared into the bays and Aramis followed her blonde head over the throng of bodies as she called out, "I didn't know anyone else had a favourite, I wouldn't have taken him if I'd known."

He was touched at the note of apology in her voice. "I know it's foolish, too often do I have to say goodbye to him at the first rest-point, but he has borne me for most of my time here."

"The bond between rider and steed is sacred, the only reason I took Lance was because- well, I needed muscle rather than speed, and he's a bruiser, _un grand malabar_."

He completely agreed with her about the first statement, but at the last, he clucked affectionately at the horse in front of him. "Lance is fast, aren't you?"

Her laugh tinkled around the wooden beams as she headed back towards him. A sleek, gorgeous mare was at her heels without the need for a lead, and he realised why Aramis thought Lance was slow.

"Who is this beauty, and why haven't I seen her before?"

Amelie rubbed her cheek against a deep black nose that was sprinkled with white spots; the effect looked like stars on a night sky. "This," she crooned affectionately, "Is Hestia, and she's not loaned out to heavy-handed Musketeers."

"As much as I take offence at that, I can see why." Amelie's mount was slender, like her – they appeared designed for each other. The name struck him as a little odd though, the only thing he could associate it with was a virgin Greek goddess.

Complete and utter chastity was not exactly high on his list of favourite qualities.

"Hestia, not Artemis or Athena?" Those goddesses seemed far more suited to her personality.

Amelie gave him a surprised glance at his knowledge of Greek deities and he ducked his head in mild embarrassment – he liked to read in his rare quiet moments, although they were sadly few and far between, lately.

Amelie nibbled an apple before sharing it with her horse and explained easily, "Goddess of hearth and home."

_Ah, _the connection made sense now, and it suited her. She anchored herself away from her spying with love for simple things like hay, horses, chill winds, and _home._

With a content sigh, she headed for a locked chest that had been there since he had arrived. None of his comrades had any idea what it was for, but he had always wondered. He watched her and asked in astonishment, "You're about to open that, aren't you?"

She laughed under her breath and pulled a key from her bodice- no, not a key, a lock pick.

It was unlocked in a few seconds and she removed a delicately carved saddle that was perfect for her and her petite horse.

He shook his head wonderingly and set about saddling Lance, who waited patiently as they went through the same process that they always did. Aramis empathised with Amelie about bonding with a horse, so many times had Lance come through for him when he needed to rush, had even helped out in the occasional fight.

He was a knight's horse, a war horse, and Aramis adored him far more than he ever let on.

Marsac always mocked him for his attachment to Lance, but his friend was known to be rather heartless at times and the insults just rolled off of him now.

Of course, Marsac might very well follow through on the threats of shooting him if he knew that he was accompanying their, er, murderer on one of her missions.

And then there was Captain Treville's reaction if he found out.

"I think I might be flirting with my own death by coming with you," he confided as they led their mounts outside.

She replied in an amused whisper, "Aren't you always?"

He caught her eye and grinned when she tilted her head at him enquiringly. Being a Musketeer meant that he was always skirting that fatal threat, but she couldn't know that he did so whenever he pursued a woman.

This one might very well be the most dangerous though, and that was before he even considered Treville, because Amelie slid gracefully into her saddle without the need of his waiting hand.

She aimed an unimpressed eyebrow at him from her lofty height and said airily, "Come now, _dépêches toi._"

Hestia whickered at Lance who sighed heavily, and it almost seemed like they were laughing at him. Of course, they had both known her longer than he had; he had only met her this morning.

Had it only been that morning?

Aramis looked up at the woman who already enchanted him. Amelie was limned in moonlight and the sight made him inhale softly, for he began to believe that he would follow her into anything.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! _Please _review or, indeed, continue to review; I adore each of you!

Yep, there's a significant amount of Greek mythology references, it's a flood-over from writing Marvel and inhaling all of that Old Norse. Please let me know if you want to see something happen or if you have any questions!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	4. The Trees

**Author's Note: **

Aramis puts his foot in it, Amelie tries to pull him out regardless, and I try to get one of my favourite quotes to work with this pairing/title.

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**The Trees**

They traversed the streets in comfortable silence until they reached the southern gates, and then Amelie flashed him a challenging smirk and promptly disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Lance immediately bunched underneath him and Aramis had to grab for the front of his saddle as his relaxed position almost had him falling. His mount pursued the frisky mare and friskier rider with all the dedication of a male that wanted something – and Aramis rather understood how he felt.

Ahead of him, Amelie stood in the stirrups, seemingly at one with her horse as they cantered almost quicker than he could follow, but he had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn't going as fast as she could.

When she looked over her shoulder and her eyes sparkled even across the distance, he knew that she wasn't trying to escape him, and something within him utterly fixated on her with an eager smile.

Never had he actually_ chased_ a woman before, not one that flew like the wind and seemed entirely at home on the dirt road with the breeze in her hair.

She slowed after a few minutes of exhilarating speed where he was half-convinced that she would stumble, and waited for him to catch up. He pulled in alongside her and she scratched Lance behind the ear, "Sorry, boy, couldn't help myself."

"I see why you said we'd be back by the morning," Aramis remarked, only slightly less out of breath than his horse.

"It's a stone's throw away! We could even stay overnight, if we wanted."

There was definitely a hint somewhere in there, but when he looked at her in delight, she was twisted around and looking behind them.

"If there's no need to rush," he replied enthusiastically. "I don't see why not-"

She squinted and then her blonde curls whirled as she snatched her reins up and rose in the saddle. "_Cours_, we're being followed."

"What-?"

Amelie bolted forward with a whistle to Lance and then his horse obediently dashed after her. Once again, Aramis almost tumbled from his seat and he cast a quick look over his shoulder as he tried to stay steady.

The moon was bright enough that they could see for miles in either direction, and there were certainly a few shadows on their tail. He would never have noticed them if it wasn't for her.

They raced down the road until they reached the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest and she scrambled around to look back. "I can't see them, but we'll lose anyone in here."

"Don't we need to get to Melun?"

"_C'est bien_, I know this forest," she replied calmly and clucked to Hestia until she began her ginger steps through the trees, Lance following carefully.

"You've been here before?"

"Yes," her voice sounded like it rang with something soft and grave, "I was born in Brie."

If Lance hadn't been propelling him forward, he would have stopped in his tracks. There was pain in her words and it made his heart ache. Amelie's fingers reached out to brush the bark almost fondly and Aramis realised that he was seeing her in her element, in the places she had probably roamed as a child.

Amelie might not have meant to, but she was showing him something precious.

It made him smile, but he stayed as silent as she lest he break the peace that Amelie had evoked. He let the tranquillity of the forest to settle him, listened to the quiet noises of their horses and the soft susurration of the trees.

It was serene and wonderful, like the tide and like Amelie.

Lance picked his way around thin gaps that he couldn't squeeze through, and the next time that Aramis saw Hestia, she was riderless.

Fear made him inhale sharply and whisper, "Amelie?"

Nothing responded and he immediately dismounted, heading for Hestia to check that she was safe. The mare offered him a shake of her head and then looked over his shoulder. It was the only indication he had that something was amiss.

Amelie collided into his back with a snicker and he stumbled into Hestia, who took offence and shifted so that he fell to the floor.

He lay for a breathless moment and then took his time rolling onto his back and leaning on his elbows. Amelie looked down at him with a mischievous grin but he wiped it from her face when he snatched her hand and pulled her to his level.

She squeaked but he was there to catch her fall, and he smiled in satisfaction when she landed on his chest. Her small fist packed quite a surprising punch when she thumped him on the sternum and murmured, "It wasn't my fault you fell, _tu es maladroite_."

He raised an eyebrow and saw her hide a laugh. "So it wasn't you that attacked me?"

"You do my skills credit, monsieur." She fluttered her eyelashes but stopped when she realised that he was watching her mouth form those clever words.

When his hands settled on her hips in a place he knew he would often be returning to, she came easily to him, her lips warm and smiling against his.

He groaned when a flavour burst against his tongue, sweet and tart, and he had only ever tasted it once before.

In his youth, he had been obsessed with being a man of faith and met with any monk that crossed his path. One, from the Chartreuse Mountains, had gifted him a sip of the liquor he had brewed in exchange for some of his father's grape and honey brandy.

_Anise, _the monk had called the mysterious taste that had fascinated him so, and that was what he tasted on Amelie's lips.

Rare, and exquisite, and addictive.

Hestia's hoof appeared right next to his head and he flinched in response. He regretted it immediately because Amelie pulled back with a concerned look at how close he had come to a crushed forehead.

He tried to coax her back down again, hungry for more, but she slid out from his hands and ran one of her own down Hestia's leg. The mare automatically showed the underside of her shoe and he realised that Amelie was worried for her horse, not the fragile state of his skull.

He almost felt affronted, but her care for her animals was too endearing.

"She caught a stone this morning," she explained and threw him a brief amused look. "That's why you caught up to me."

"My lucky day," he murmured honestly and was rewarded with a sparkle of a pleased smile.

Amelie stood to rub her thumbs against Hestia's cheeks. "Are you alright, girl? I didn't think I'd have to push you tonight."

Hestia nudged her rider back until Amelie relented and, with a smile, produced another apple from the deep pockets of her dress. "Ah, you found me out. For you, _ma fleur._"

He smiled at the nickname. "Is she okay?"

"Yes, but I'd like to stable her tonight if we could."

He sighed a little reluctantly as he stood up. "Onto Melun, then?"

"I don't have an apple to make you smile, but," she trailed off to rise up on her toes and gave him a soft, tantalisingly fleeting kiss.

It ended far too soon. "I'm still very upset."

She laughed at his pouting plea and the sound made his chest tighten again in happiness, so he forgave her for not immediately returning and giving him what he wanted.

But he vowed to himself that he would have it soon.

Marsac had said that he didn't so much fall for women, more that he tripped. It happened suddenly and without warning, and that the painful fall followed afterwards.

But Aramis always believed that the pain was worth it, because the trip was happiness and ecstasy, and he chased that feeling whenever he could. Every moment that he wasn't working, he sought out that impeccable high and refused to think about the inevitable low.

When Amelie looked up towards the tree canopy and a shaft of moonlight caught the gold glitter of her hair, he knew that there could be no fall with her.

She was perfect.

Of course, he had said this before, and each time he had been proven wrong – but the reason had always been _duty. _Duty to the crown always came first; it had to, despite how much he might want to damn it all when he lay in a warm bed.

But he had seen what became of wayward duty, when _loyalty _had been marred by it. He still held his once-betrothed's face in his mind's eye when he saw the bottom of a bottle, still remembered that crushing ache when she had been sent away by her father because of a _duty _that should have fallen to him.

He had loved her, and duty had taken her away from him, and so he now let duty take him away from everyone.

Until Amelie.

"At last," she breathed into the stillness, and Aramis silently echoed the sentiment.

They broke out of the treeline and Melun sprawled ahead of them, dark and sleepy, and somewhere someone was waiting for a letter.

"Do you need to deliver it now, or can it wait until the morning?" There was a wistful note to his voice that she must have picked up on, because her smile was apologetic.

"It _can _wait, but I'd like to get it done."

"Very well." He paused in the hope that his next statement wouldn't anger her. "I want to come with you."

Her mouth formed the letter 'n', he saw it, her tongue pressed against her teeth and the denial very nearly made its way out, but she must have seen how determined he was.

Something that looked alarmingly like anguish raced across her face for a mere blink of an eye, and then it disappeared as she said in an almost strangled way, "Okay."

He blinked at her in shock, he hadn't expected such an easy acquiescance, had thought that he would have to fight her on it. She was confident and clever, and she had to be well-versed in visits such as these, but he couldn't help the need to be by her side and protect her.

It didn't feel as good to win as he had thought it would, because it suddenly felt as if he had forced her, and that made him feel sick.

"Of course," he found himself saying, "I could always find us a room at the inn, instead?"

Amelie's chest heaved in a relieved sigh that he didn't understand, but the grateful smile that she bestowed on him completely erased the sickened feeling.

There was something important there that he had to think over, because every moment that she wasn't in his sight he would feel just as nauseous with fear for her safety, and he wasn't sure if he could live with that.

* * *

Amelie coasted on relief and felt the tension slowly drift away from her chest.

For a dreadful moment, the angles had almost been in opposite directions and she hadn't known what to do.

She should have expected that, Aramis, with all of his gallant intentions, would want to accompany her on every step of the journey – but she couldn't allow that.

It had torn at something in her chest when she realised that this wasn't going to be as blissfully simple as she had thought it was going to be. She was used to blending into crowds and working from the shadows, but Aramis was eye-catching and used to the light, he would blow her cover as soon as she stepped towards the drop-off point.

Amelie was used to dealing with details, with the nitty gritty facts that made up France's seedy underworld, but Aramis? He would see the forest all too clearly, the trees nothing but black marks against her.

And yet, she hadn't been able to deny him, because that lonely part of her had cried out when she had tried to. The memories of sparks up her spine and warm laughter had her accepting the completely stupid request. She couldn't turn him away when he had stood between her and the tavern door, and she couldn't turn him away when her livelihood was on the line.

Oh, this was very bad.

But, instead, he had changed his mind and offered her a way out, a way for both of them to be happy, even if it wasn't what they wanted.

But when did she ever get what she wanted?

She led the way into the heart of Melun, winding around buildings on a slow walk until they reached the inn. It was a good thing that she knew the town so well, for she would have to sneak through the darkness as even the lamps had been put out by now.

Amelie slid off of her saddle and pressed her forehead against Hestia's. "Be good, don't give Aramis any lip."

Aramis snorted, but halted when Hestia levelled a stare at him that dared him to come any closer. "Ah," he began nervously. "How long are you going to be?"

With a smile, Amelie handed over her reins and brushed a kiss over Aramis' strong jaw. "Not long. Stable them together; I think Lance has a _tendre_ for Hestia."

"Is that a good idea?"

"She'll just lead him on a merry chase, don't worry," she replied with a wink, and laughed when Aramis narrowed his eyes and smiled.

Before she could walk away, he reached for her hand and turned her around to face him. Behind the amusement, she could see concern in his dark eyes as he beseeched, "Be safe, _ma petite ombre_."

She flushed, she felt it as heat on her cheeks and a delighted smile on her lips, ones that he kissed softly and had her wondering how urgent this delivery truly was…

A soft sigh escaped her as she dragged herself away, and she turned once to see a smug Aramis standing in a beam of moonlight.

The Eros was so very tempting, and he knew it.

Amelie shook her head at her own silliness and ran her palm over the hidden letter in her bodice. It had never been so difficult for her to keep her mind on the task, on the mission, on her _life's work._

Aramis was dangerous, but Amelie had always loved danger.

It was why she was running around the streets in the moonlit dark in nothing but a cotton dress and a lick of fear at the base of her spine. Coincidentally, that was where she kept one of the three knives that were easily accessible through hidden folds in her specially tailored dresses.

Who said that you needed to wear breeches to fight or flee?

Amelie smiled as she darted around corners, but it was a little bitter as she thought about how Aramis had almost insisted on joining her. He was too protective to not wish to do so, but it made anger flare in her stomach at the thought of her not being _capable_.

This was a simple task even if she hadn't been prowling around France for years. She was well used to the adrenaline-fuelled chases and the smell of gunpowder; they were fun diversions from the under-handed tasks that occasionally had her delivering extortion notes written by the Cardinal's hand.

She almost preferred the spying, even if it meant she had to make pretty with aristocrats who dealt in honeyed words and poisoned blades.

There was always a moment when a letter was still in her possession but just about to leave her fingers, and she hesitated. It happened every time, as if she had to battle with herself to let it go, and as she divested of the tiny scrap of paper, a tiny sliver of darkness weighed on her heart.

She left the letter and took the weight, and then she ran, ran for the relative safety of one lit window in the inn and marvelled that someone was _waiting up for her._

That little flare of anger at Aramis' urge to protect died when she knocked on the only room with light under the door, and it opened onto worried brown eyes and a relieved sigh.

"Missed me?" she asked casually, to hide her own feeling of relief and how her dark heart soared at his warm and glowing presence.

"Considerably." Aramis ushered her in and Amelie saw that he was still dressed, his boots still on and his weapons still strapped to his sides. His hair stuck up at odd angles and it was obvious that he had been pacing. Her heart soared higher.

Aramis' slightly callused fingers brushed along her cheek as he checked her over for injuries, and the darkness receded from his touch, like shadows from a flame.

She pushed into his palm and adored him, fixated on his fire, because when he was gone, the shadows would be ever darker.

But in these snatched moments, he made her feel truly bright.

Amelie touched her lips to his and used his delighted surprise to edge him back towards the bed, smiling when he swayed as the backs of his knees met the wooden frame.

He sat, a hurried movement that made her laugh, and then she turned away to lock their door and cast an automatic glance over the room. It was a bit sparse, but with a window that opened onto the back street rather than the front.

The best part of the room, though, was Aramis painstakingly removing his weapons and placing them carefully on the table. Her fingers lingered over his arquebus, the gun surprisingly free from ornamentation for a man with a romantic's heart.

"From my first commission," he supplied as more scabbards and holsters appeared.

"It's very pretty."

"Thank you." His smile was staggering, and then he offered charmingly, "I could show you how to use it, if you like?"

Her snort wasn't as ladylike as she had hoped it would be, but it succeeded in distracting her from his growing pile of weaponry. As Aramis rose to unbuckle something at his back, Amelie fell onto the bed covers and placed an arm over her eyes.

She had lied when she had told Treville that she had been up since the dawn before, it had actually been the night before that, and finally feeling comfortable meant that exhaustion was starting to tickle at the edges of her awareness.

The bed dipped under Aramis' weight and his voice was soft and a little wondering, "You've used an arquebus before, haven't you?"

She smiled but kept her eyes covered. "_Peut-être_, at one time or another."

"I'd like to see that."

Her smile grew wider. "I'm sure you would."

He settled properly, if a little hesitantly, and then he lay alongside her, his leather-bound leg brushing against her cotton-clad one. It felt so incredibly bizarre to know that someone had been waiting for her safe return, would keep her company on the journey home when she usually only had her lonely thoughts to taunt her.

She looked at Aramis, and in him, she saw her salvation.

He tried to fight a yawn and failed, so she pushed his hair back and murmured, "Sleep, I don't mind."

"I do not want to _sleep_," he muttered, apparently angry at his own tiredness.

"You'll need your strength."

"Oh, will I?" he replied with a sly tone to his voice even as he closed his eyes. She laughed under her breath and enjoyed keeping her fingers tangled in his hair, in scooting a little closer and resting her hand on his chest.

It was like torture, for she knew that she didn't have long to indulge. Spies didn't rest for long; they were always on the move, on the run.

But for now, she watched Aramis, her salvation, the way time ticked onwards and every breath against her palm was like one wasted. She admired the way the candlelight flickered over them both, and then he flicked open an eyelid and smiled smugly at her.

"_Vaurien_," she murmured fondly, and he stretched contentedly against her, like a cat.

Sweet, sweet torture.

A clatter of horses outside had her raising her head. A bang of the inn door had her pushing up on one arm. A ruckus of rumbled words and shouts had her looking down at the man who had just burned away the darkness.

"Tell me you didn't give your real name when you took the room." The aggrieved look in his suddenly very awake eyes made her sigh and chastise, "Aramis."

"Was I not meant to?"

She regarded him calmly as he sat up and tensely reached for his pistol. "You _are _with a spy."

Distress made his voice low, "I'm sorry-"

"Hush," she interrupted, and pointed at the chair in the corner. "Wedge that under the door-handle, I'm sure you know how."

The look he gave her was at once amused and incredulous, as if he couldn't quite believe how complacent she was. This was all old news to her, just as escaping from rooms probably was for him, but for entirely different reasons.

She had been looking forward to a night of mostly uninterrupted rest, as she deserved on her supposed leave, but perhaps it had been her own fault for bringing a soldier on a spy's job.

Amelie found that she wasn't as irritated as she had thought that she would be. Instead, the thrill of adventure was a little staccato beat in her veins as she considered their options.

The first difficult task was making Aramis retie his jacket - which had been frustratingly close to coming off - the next was ascertaining whether the disturbance downstairs was definitely because of them.

Of course it was, who else would it be for?

With Aramis' chest now unfortunately hidden, he palmed his rapier and looked ready to fight an army – until he looked at her and realised that she was built to run, not to fight.

She was good at running.

Always had been.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Creative licence is basically a way to write fantastically ill-timed interruptions to smut and fluff whenever you want, sorrynotsorry. In other news, horses are apparently a big deal in this AU. I'm like reboot Disney, can't help putting a Maximus or a Sven in to lighten the mood!

All of my thanks for reading, and especially to those of you who have followed and reviewed; please continue (or start) to do so! Each of you make my day brighter.

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	5. The Flight

**Author's Note: **

Aramis dances with a mischief-maker too at home in the depths of danger and lets his protectiveness cloud his judgement. Amelie acts like the brisk wind to dispel the clouds, and with it, stokes the flames of a fire that threatens to consume her whole.

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**The Flight**

Anxiety tore through him like ink on wet parchment as he saw how woefully unarmed Amelie was, but she merely considered him with a small smile on her face, as if he amused her.

He was terrified that she was going to get hurt because of his foolishness, and yet she was as calm as anything, her placidity slightly soothing his ragged nerves.

Adrenaline had woken him far better than his desire had, and he realised that perhaps it was a good thing that he had been so tired, for at least they had both been dressed and ready for an attack.

That thought wasn't quite as pleasing as it should be.

In fact, he felt downright cheated.

Shouts from downstairs meant that the doorway was definitely out as an available exit, which only left one other option.

"_Vite_, out of the window." As he turned to face it, Amelie was already ahead of him and recklessly sticking her head past the shutters. Her balance was precarious and his nerves jumped at the sight so that he cried, "Wait! Let me go first, I can catch you-"

"No," she said thoughtfully and twisted to glance above. "We'll go up, the roof will be better."

"The roof?"

She turned to him with a sly smile. "I'll go first, I can catch you."

He almost laughed, it tickled his cheeks, but then he saw Amelie swing her feet onto the ledge and fear for her safety gripped him again. "Are you mad?"

"Considerably."

She flashed him an encouraging grin that hinted of mischief, and despite everything, it pulled him towards her. Amelie was a study in contrasts, soft and pliant when against him, clever and dangerous when away – or perhaps she was always all of those things.

When she opened her mouth in confusion at his sudden approach, he silenced her with a kiss and a breathless, "Be careful."

"I've done this a hundred times, Aramis," her voice was a little high and there were two pink stains on her cheeks that hadn't been there before, when they _only _had to deal with swords and dangerous drops.

"You're mad," he stated, and it made him smile even as it made his heart beat treacherously in his chest. He was torn between being completely enamoured with her roguish ways and wanting her to be as safe as possible.

He had the strangest sensation of a sword being suspended over his head for some reason.

"I'm a Musketeer, aren't we all?" she asked idly as she stood and disappeared from view. He didn't quite know how to respond to that, because she was right – you had to be a little mad to dedicate your life to defending your country, but it was a good kind of mad.

They all told themselves that it was, anyway.

What fool had shown Amelie the Musketeers when she clearly enjoyed dancing with danger?

Scrambling through the ceiling could be heard as he peered nervously at the window, and then she appeared upside down, her brow furrowed. "Why are you just standing there?"

"Get away from the edge!"

She rolled her eyes at him, a strange sight considering that she looked downwards to do it, but then she held her hand out and smiled. "_Viens_, Aramis, I won't leave you there."

"I wish you would," he muttered fearfully under his breath, even as her loyalty struck him once more.

Insistent banging began on the door that forced his decision. He tentatively placed his feet on the window's sill, the drop seemed like miles and he almost faltered, but then Amelie's fingers gently cupped his jaw from behind. When he turned with his pulse thumping in his throat, she was looking down at him, smiling reassuringly.

The things he would do for that smile.

Amelie's hand was soft and small in his, and for another moment he wondered what on earth he was doing, but then her grip firmed and she tugged before he was ready. Strain appeared on her face and he forced himself upwards to help her.

His foot slipped and then her other hand shot for his shoulder to keep him steady. On an exhale, she _pulled _just as he managed to find purchase and kick away from the wall. He surged over the tiles and remembered at the last second to brace himself so that he didn't crush her.

"Amelie-!"

She hushed him and lay completely still, even though her arm was bent awkwardly under his. In the silence, he heard voices from their room, the scuffing of a shutter moving and then a harsh grunt, "_Merde!_ They've legged it, get the horses and find them!"

Amelie had been right; the roof was the better choice.

Relief made him sigh, and then he inhaled it back rather sharply when he realised that she was watching him absent-mindedly. She was tense, her slender muscles stiff as she listened for their pursuers. But she wasn't scared, she wasn't unsure; she had done this before.

She was in her element on the rooftops just as she was in the woods.

Her alert blue eyes were his for the watching as her attention was elsewhere, and he couldn't help but fixate on them. In one was the lightness that she showed in Treville's office, her gowns and glimmer, the lady that fought with quick wits and a shrewd tongue. In the other was the darkness, the sly glances that she showed him when she wore her armour, the hidden Musketeer that could apparently use an arquebus.

She was a delicious dichotomy that he had never encountered before.

In the moonlight, she was as radiant as he had said. Her likeness to the tide had been natural for him to notice, she was serene but with the tendency to cause chaos. He was a boat that could capsize in her depths, and he was happy to lose himself to her.

She fascinated him.

"I think they've gone-" Amelie cut herself off when she saw him staring, and she must have been able to read the fire in his mind because it blazed into her eyes until they seemed to match in colour. "Now is really not the time…"

She sounded wistful.

It was enough of an encouragement.

With villains on the look-out for them and a deadly drop only a few feet away, he kissed her. Perhaps her almost suicidal sense of adventure was inspiring him, or perhaps it was just the way her lips immediately parted for his; either way, he indulged. Amelie finally relaxed against him and he smiled in victory as sweetness bloomed against his tongue.

_He_ had distracted her.

Amelie's hands brushed against his chest and then her clever fingers slid past his hastily tied jacket. Her nails bit against his skin and he couldn't help the surprised noise of pleasure that escaped from his mouth to hers.

It was ecstasy and anise and every bit as perfect as he had remembered.

Amelie stilled and tilted her head to the side, so he took advantage. He ran a trail of kisses against her neck, and was rewarded with her soft shuddering.

"_Attendez_," she breathed into the swiftly heating air. With her throat exposed so irresistibly, he ignored her and nibbled the soft skin, interested to note that she bucked and tried to stifle a moan.

It was the best game that he had ever played.

Until she scored him far too hard than their play warranted and a line of discomfort opened on his torso.

"Ouch," he mumbled against the soft skin of her cheek and felt her small smile against his.

"There's someone in our room."

He froze and cursed himself for getting carried away. He cursed whoever had interrupted this snatched moment of bliss. And yet he couldn't curse Amelie for not failing as completely as he had, because she had kept an ear out for danger, and he had turned a blind eye.

She was dutiful to the last, and he found that so very attractive.

Her voice was a whisper, "Are you leaning on the tiles?"

"Er." He tested his weight and they both flinched when something creaked. "Yes."

"Bah. Okay, stay still, and don't get any ideas."

He was about to ask her what she meant by that but then she began to wriggle and he had to focus on not getting any ideas.

It didn't work.

"Amelie, _par pitié!_"

She smirked at his pleading tone and slowly moved out from underneath him, murmuring, "_Reste ici_, I'm going to check."

"Check what?" Anxiety flooded him as she didn't answer and disappeared past his shoulder on amazingly quiet feet. He tried to turn, but received a reprimanding tap on the leg when he leaned on a tile and it creaked again.

Holding himself steady whilst she was doing Heaven knows what, was torturous.

When she finally returned, he was practically locked into place, his every muscle screaming as he tried to stay as motionless as possible lest he give their position away. She regarded his trembling form with sadistic amusement on her face.

"So still," she remarked softly, and knelt down to run a finger from his neck up to his chin, leaving goose bumps in the wake. He raised his head, because she clearly wanted him to, and then she placed a kiss upon his lips.

She pulled back and he strained to follow her, but then his arms finally gave out and he flopped onto the roof.

Amelie crooned his praises and it balmed his aches as he crawled onto hands and feet, her cool fingers pushing his hair back. "I'm afraid you would make a very bad spy, Aramis."

He deigned to answer her with a raised eyebrow, because he was too unsteady to do much else.

She hummed in assent. "Many a time I had to stay in one position for hours, but you, monsieur, fidget."

"I do not!"

"Yes, you do." She smiled and placed a finger against his mouth when they both stood and he tried to defend himself. "Hush, there may be more about."

His righteous defence died at the sight of her slender arm, lightly scratched and bare.

A different defence rose in its place.

"_Tant pis_, where is your cloak?"

"I left it with the horses."

"Why did you do that?" he asked incredulously, but she just casually lifted her shoulder and smiled when his hands automatically fell to her hips. Aramis couldn't deny the protective urge that rose within him, wanted to tug her closer and keep her safe.

And yet, the way she regarded him with amusement in her eyes, told him that she didn't need it.

He found that he didn't- _couldn't _believe that.

"I don't normally have to hide." She paused and added, "Until this."

"This?"

"Yes," she mused, walking off to look about at their surroundings. "I'm not sure, but they might be after the letter."

"Is that not obvious?"

"No." She turned to regard him seriously and it shocked him a little after she had been so joyful at their escape. "I've had two supposedly easy tasks today, but you seem to be complicating everything."

"Me?!"

She ignored him and started to tick things off with her fingers. "_Premier_, with the courier-"

"That wasn't my fault."

"_Deuxième_, with Marsac-"

"Again, not my fault."

"Now, with this letter…"

He paused on an inhaled breath. "Is this my fault?"

That mischievous spark appeared in her dark eyes again and he could take another breath, even if it caught in his throat when she prowled towards him. "You're the only variable, Aramis, in my otherwise straight-forward world. Luckily for you, I like variables."

She joined him in the centre of the tiles, well away from the edge, to his relief. She was too much at home up here, where he couldn't catch her if she fell.

Why did he get the feeling that she was buttering him up?

That was his job.

"Especially variables that look so _séduisant_," she cooed and it made him beam. His brain scrambled to remember that Amelie wasn't just beautiful, she was clever. She proved that thought very right when she continued rapidly, "And will wait here until I fetch the horses."

"No."

The heat that had risen in her eyes dimmed a little, not completely, but it slumbered rather than blazed. It was a small consolation that she seemed as affected by him as he by her, but he still wouldn't let that pleasing thought muddle his judgement and let her run off into danger.

She scowled and whispered hotly, "Oh, come on! You'll be seen immediately."

"Yes, but I can fend off anyone that does."

A withering look was sent his way and he thought that he might pay for that later, but then she sighed deprecatingly, as if he had disappointed her in some way other than an accidental slight. "It's not about the fending, it's about staying hidden."

He didn't like thinking that he had disappointed her, it hurt something integral inside of him, but she continued regardless, "I'm a spy; no one is allowed to associate anything with this letter, least of all a Musketeer who's wearing his guard and cloak."

He glanced at his shoulders with a dooming sense of guilt, realised why she was dressed so simply. "You think we- I, were seen?"

Amelie tilted her head to the side and the disappointment fell away, but his anxiety didn't. "Yes, but it-"

"I shouldn't have come, I've hindered your work." She was right, she was a spy, evidently a very good one, and he had just gotten in her way.

"Aramis, _cela ne vaut pas la peine_-"

"What was I thinking?"

"Hopefully of keeping me company, of watching my back, and that can only ever be a good thing," she said with a wry smile, and then touched his jaw with her clever fingers.

He took solace from that touch and calmed underneath it. "I don't want to put you to any trouble."

"Nonsense," she scoffed lightly. "You're made of trouble."

"And you aren't?"

"Touché."

He felt his lip tug upwards at her accepting nod, but her loyalty and her duty were like burning brands against his sensibilities. He wanted to keep her safe, but everything she did was courting danger.

She had an important task to do but she had brought him along regardless, was even now defending him when she could have so easily delivered the letter without him slowing her down.

"Have I ruined this?" he asked carefully, and only after her smile relieved him so did he realise that he wasn't just talking about her mission.

"No," she murmured, and then the fire beckoned once more. "In fact, play your cards right and you might have guaranteed it."

"I never cheat."

She tilted her head and a strange look passed her face, it looked like uncertain consideration. "No, you don't, do you?"

"It's not in me to withdraw, _ma belle_."

"Nor I," she said with a smile that seemed at once heartfelt and forlorn.

If he could erase that melancholy by taking it unto himself, he would do so, for he never wanted her to hurt again.

* * *

Forget poison and trickery, Aramis was like a drug to her senses. Never before had she been so easily distracted by anything, especially not when out on a task, but one staggering smile or even a glance from those chocolate brown eyes and she was caught like deer in a trap.

The trap of a leopard's paws.

He was a weakness.

Amelie was not a proper spy; she never could be, not when she cherished her weaknesses. She couldn't protect herself from them, because she welcomed them; she couldn't even hide them, because she was obvious in her adoration.

She could not turn them into her secrets.

She might deal in those of others, but she didn't like to hold her own.

Amelie was a heart-on-the-sleeve kind of girl. How could she be a good spy with vulnerabilities such as that? She had only lasted as long as she had because Treville was happy to set her off and wait for her to fly back; they were connected in the way of guardian and ward, a far more relaxed version of father and daughter.

She didn't deny that the man cared for her and she for him, he was her weakness too, but they understood each other, knew what drove them.

Duty to one's country and a loyalty to those you loved, and hopefully those two things would never point in opposite angles.

At this moment in her life, they didn't. Duty had her gallivanting around France and loyalty to Treville had her following that order. It worked, her life _worked, _and it made her happy, even as it gave with one hand and took away with the other.

She hungered for companionship, for someone other than Treville to shoulder her burdens. Not the ones of France – _those _she had enough people wanting to know – but her own, her own grievances and gripes, her love and laughter.

Friendship was something that spies shouldn't and couldn't ever have, but she had never been a very good spy.

"I will wait," Aramis' grave words intruded on the thoughts that constantly plagued her, and for a moment she thought that he had answered her silent plea, her fervent wish, her hope for someone that wouldn't be put off by her constant comings and goings.

Then she remembered.

"The horses."

Aramis frowned at her for a brief second, but then she tasted honey and red wine as he tenderly entreated, "Be careful."

Amelie warmed, a deep and meaningful warmth, because Aramis believed that she could take care of herself – or at least, believed that she could outrun anything that might chase her. "I will soon tire of you saying that."

At her wry tone, his lip lifted into a teasing smile. "Then stop making me say it."

"You would soon tire of boredom, Aramis."

His smile dropped and even she heard the momentous clarity in words that she hadn't meant to sound so serious. For was that not every Musketeer's fear? That after pursuing every thrill that the world had to offer, life might appear so very dull?

It loomed on her far closer and far more frightening than it could for Aramis, for she was a female with a tendency for weakness, a longing for both home and away.

Two things that dragged in opposite angles.

Aramis stood in front of her, and behind her stood the stables.

Once again, she ran. She ran from the fire and into the shadows that she knew so intimately. She turned for the stables and felt hands falling from her hips far more easily than she had expected, and that strange tearing in her chest occurred again.

She dismissed it as anxiety, despite angst hardly ever strumming on her steely nerves. If it were anything so simple, it would be concern for Aramis, alone on a darkened rooftop where she had left him.

Because she had ran away.

Amelie slid down tiles and dropped deftly to the floor, whispering a grateful prayer for the foresight to wear a simple dress. There was a dusty scuff along one side and probably a few loose threads on her bodice, but she was relatively unscathed – always a delightful surprise.

Hestia whickered happily at her approach but Lance stamped when Amelie tried to saddle him without Aramis there. "_Doucement,"_ Amelie murmured soothingly. "He's fine, but I need you to come with me."

The stables were a mess, testament to the ruckus that they had heard downstairs. Fortunately, Aramis had removed Lance's indicative saddle and the two trained horses wouldn't have let anyone into their bay to root around.

Small blessings.

Amelie clucked to the pair, Lance following when Hestia did, and Amelie couldn't quite hide her smile at the similarities to her own life right now.

It faded when she thought about what she had led Aramis into.

A spy's world was no place for a loyal soldier who burned brighter than the sun.

The streets were suspiciously quiet but she made it all the way back before noticing anything was amiss. Lance suddenly refused to budge, his hooves locked into place as his eyes rolled in distress. Amelie snatched a rock from the ground and arced it over the roof, matching Aramis' grimace when he appeared in a clatter of tiles and dust.

"Too loud," she murmured absent-mindedly, and pulled Hestia's head down when a click cracked from the shadows.

Aramis drew quicker than Amelie had thought possible and the image of him with his pistol drawn and an intense look of utter protection on his face would stay with her forever. His brow furrowed as he looked along his rock-steady, out-stretched arm, his powder-blue cloak flaring, and he shot confidently into the darkness.

As she watched from the shadows, Aramis was caught in the candlelight from their open window, and he looked magnificent.

A thump followed the crack, and Amelie turned with a wide-eyed appreciation. "_Bon coup_!"

A glimmer of a smile tilted his lips, but then he strode forward to cup her cheek. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course," she said hesitantly, guilt fluttering in her stomach for dragging him down to the seedy world of espionage. When he opened his mouth to ask again, she whispered quickly, "Let's go."

He nodded once, but hovered until she had stepped into her saddle. Aramis seemed different, he appeared determined and focused all of a sudden, keeping an eye out but staying close to her side.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline, for it was certainly soaring through her veins at the moment. It managed to draw a laugh from her chest as they raced out of Melun and Aramis shook his head with a smile.

"_Tiens_," she called gleefully. "You enjoy the flight, the excitement!"

They slowed to a walk once they were almost out of the town proper, and Aramis weighed his head to the side. "_Vrai_, but I also don't think I would find boredom, boring."

Amelie frowned at that matter-of-fact statement and couldn't understand it, couldn't imagine a life of monotony being interesting. One man's boredom could not be another man's thrill, for that didn't make any sense, boredom was boring.

She glanced askance at him and wondered whether his winged heart didn't fly as close to the sun as hers did.

The thought made her unnaturally sad.

She looked back to check for pursuers and her eye caught on a horse tied to a rest stop outside the walls. On the off-chance that the tethered mount belonged to one of their followers, she headed towards it. Better it loose than available to chase them. Aramis turned when she did, Lance dutifully following her lead even if his rider hadn't noticed.

As she dismounted and approached, the beast flicked an unconcerned ear her way, and then she saw the saddle.

Aramis' surprised voice came from behind her, "I recognise that horse, it's-"

"Marsac's," she said with trepidation in her stomach and her fingers on the Musketeer sigil engraved in the leather. She shouldn't have expected tonight to go well, she shouldn't have thought happiness so easy to achieve.

A click of a readying pistol and then an unfortunately familiar voice sounded from behind the wall, "Step away, _meurtrière_."

Amelie threw an unamused glance at a too-faraway Aramis and sighed heartily. Well, Marsac evidently knew that she was a woman, _now. _

The darkness loomed.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Please review and, as always, write me if I'm taking too long or you just want to wax lyrical about the Musketeers! Hugs for each of you!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	6. The Trigger

**Author's Note: **

Amelie stands with a brightly burning fire at her front and a clinging dark void at her back; and it's all too easily to fall into either. Aramis tastes a familiar medicine and finds it horribly sour, the difficulty lies in a mouthful of sugar being found in the dim streets of Paris where the temptresses roam.

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

**The Trigger**

"Marsac, _arrête!_"

At Aramis' shout, Amelie watched Marsac's accusing eyes jump from hers to beyond her shoulder, and then he scowled. "Aramis, why aren't I surprised to see you _not _dead? Did wooing a murderer shake things up for you?"

"She isn't a murderer," Aramis explained quickly, his voice high and urgent, "She's a spy, for the King."

Amelie's jaw dropped and she slowly looked over her shoulder with an expression that definitely showed how stunned she was. Aramis shrugged apologetically, adding, "He has an itchy trigger finger."

_And the Cardinal a quick hand, _she wanted to hiss, despising Marsac for putting her in this position, for forcing the angles in opposite directions.

The barrel connected to that trigger met the bruise it had made earlier that day and Amelie muttered, "People have died knowing less about me."

"I thought she wasn't a murderer," Marsac spat, and Amelie rolled her eyes at him.

"You tell me, _Musketeer_ – of which we both are," she said dryly, "Are _you_ a murderer?"

Marsac sneered, an ugly curl of his lips as he looked down his nose at her and said scornfully, "You are not a Musketeer, _putain_-"

Amelie drove her left hand upwards to point his pistol at the stars and closed her eyes in defeat when, once again, Marsac shot instinctively. At least he was without a shot, now.

With ringing in her ears, Amelie whispered hotly, "Do you have _any _common sense, _imbécile_?"

Marsac tried to move, so Amelie finally forced the knife she had drawn at his appearance against his stomach hard enough for him to still. It was hidden between them both and, with Aramis at her back, she knew that he couldn't see.

Couldn't see an aspect to her that he had not yet realised.

Aramis thought her an escape artist, a deliverer of letters, an eavesdropper, but she had as much blood on her hands as he did.

In fact, her slender fingers might have more.

"She is not a killer," Aramis called, and his utter confidence started a burning in her throat that eclipsed the bruise that Marsac had caused.

"She is a _spy,"_ Marsac hissed, and he said it as if she were the scum beneath his feet, said it and tried to make Aramis understand.

Because Marsac knew that spies could kill, and they could kill very well.

"Move and I will gut you," she breathed into Marsac's furious face. "Now, _tais toi,_ and I won't bring you up in front of Treville for threatening a King's spy."

Aramis finally ventured closer, his face concerned as he came into her periphery and pushed Marsac's shoulder until he stumbled backwards. Amelie used the distraction to slip her knife back inside her dress, and couldn't meet Aramis' eyes as he searched her face to check for injury.

The shadows were thickening, and even his fire might not be bright enough to burn them away.

"_Mon Dieu, _Marsac," he sighed to the glaring man, "You'll bring the whole town after us."

"He already has," she interjected with a calculating glance at the flaring torches lighting Melun's recently-dark streets. "In fact, I'm not sure whether he was ahead or behind our pursuers."

Marsac glared at her, but sighed angrily when Aramis raised an eyebrow at him, and replied to the question she had implied, "I didn't lead them to you."

Aramis gave her a strange glance and said, "Of course he didn't. Come, we need to get away."

It was with morbid amusement that Amelie realised that both she and Marsac were looking at Aramis as if he were blind.

Marsac knew that she was a killer, and Amelie knew that he was a traitor.

It was written in his mad, slightly feverish eyes – he would kill her simply for spying, it didn't matter that she was on their side, didn't matter that Aramis vouched for her.

When Amelie turned to follow Aramis, it was to feel the hot end of the barrel against her back and Marsac's poisoned words along her neck. "But I would have done, had I known what you were."

"You would have Aramis punished for knowing me?" Amelie whispered over her shoulder, and jerked when Marsac drove the metal circle into her flesh.

"Aramis would follow a pretty face into Hell and I would drag him out, but you? I would have you burn for leading him there."

"A pretty sentiment," she murmured, "But I did not _lead _him anywhere."

"No, and you will not, because I know your type, and you'll be off following the King's command in the morn, leaving Aramis broken in your wake."

It wasn't an order, it was a fact, and it made her blood run cold, because Marsac was right. If she was asked to run, she would run, no matter how much Aramis' smile looked like her absolution.

Because duty always had to come first.

Aramis mounted and frowned when he realised that she hadn't followed him. The barrel left her back, but the pain didn't, instead it burst along her spine and into her chest, tasting of betrayal.

Hers, because as much as her heart started to sing when Aramis placed his hands proprietarily on her hips, she would turn from him again and again if it meant doing her duty to France.

And no one, even wonderful, bright, charming Musketeers could tolerate that.

It's why she had lived such a lonely existence for so long, and she had been able to deal with it, until she had tasted companionship, tasted _Aramis._ Aramis and his smiles, his teasing, his hot kisses against her skin.

How could she ever taste red wine or honey again without thinking of him?

How could she _leave _her Eros in the morning?

Amelie mounted Hestia with numbness weighing heavy on her shoulders, responsibility a cloud of darkness that would not lift.

First, she had to get them away from the wreck that this night had become.

"Come, into Fontainebleau," she said, suddenly tired where simple physical exertion had only thrilled her. Emotional exhaustion hit harder, faster, and it took no prisoners.

Aramis stilled, his eyes darting to hers, something unsure and jealous in them. "No, not there."

"No?"

He smiled for the first time in what seemed like hours, a small and private one, meant just for her. "Not where we were, anyway."

She was unnaturally slow on the uptake, but when it occurred, warmth flared in her chest. Aramis didn't want Marsac to go into _their _part of the forest, and really, neither did she.

Whatever happened tonight, there were memories made that she would cherish forever.

Their frolicking in the woods was one of them.

"There's a clearing closer to Paris that we can use," she was conceding to Aramis and it was too easy to bask in his pleasure.

"_Parfait._"

Marsac took that moment to pull up between them and flash Amelie a scowl that would have rivalled one of the court ladies in its potent viciousness, only for it to be wiped clean when he turned his attention on Aramis.

Amelie sighed heartily and urged Hestia onwards; forging a path through a forest that she could never stop returning to, and it was always when she was trying to escape something.

The past, the present, the future; always a threat on the horizon.

For once, she wasn't sure whether she wanted the dawn to come quicker or slower. Quicker meant that she would be spared the heartache of long indecision, slower meant that she could try and forget everything as she looked into the brightness of Aramis' fire until spots danced in her eyes.

The path to Paris lay ahead of her, behind was Aramis.

This time, when Amelie turned, it was to Aramis, but she knew as well as Marsac did, that it wouldn't last.

How could it?

If the fires of Hell truly were her destination, she was selfish enough to want Aramis there, but she would not lead him to his doom; even if the mere sight of him made her winged heart skip beats.

She would leave, because the flutterings of guilt in her chest were already too much, and the want in his eyes too addictive.

Amelie would not drag Aramis into the shadows with her.

* * *

Something was amiss and Aramis couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Of course, there was the whole situation with Marsac who was now glaring at a carefully neutral Amelie.

She had closed off to him after their roof escapade, and the loss of her mischief left him feeling confused and disoriented.

But this wasn't right, there wasn't meant to be a fall yet, there wasn't _ever _meant to be one with her, not when he had tasted anise perfection on his lips and had only done so for far too short a time.

What had changed, what had forced her sly smiles into tense lines? Had it been something that he had said or, perhaps, not said?

Amelie was not a doting miss, she was no mature widow, she wasn't anything that he was _familiar _with. Instead, she was mad and a little wild, a veritable force of nature that left him breathless; and she was glorious.

With a glance to his side, he wondered if it was Marsac that had caused the change, and silently cursed his friend for appearing at such inopportune times. Amelie was far enough ahead that he could safely whisper to the man.

"Marsac, why _are-_"

"Have you slept with her?"

Aramis reeled in shock at the quiet but intense question. Marsac had always been blunt, but hearing him refer to Amelie with a considerable amount of venom in his voice was a new low for him.

"Not that it's any business of yours."

"That's a no," Marsac breathed, seemingly grateful for some reason. "Losing your touch?"

Aramis settled at the usual banter, drawing himself up in pretended haughtiness as he said sincerely, "Diamonds take time to shine; Amelie is no mere costume jewellery."

Marsac's lip curled as it often did, if a little more vicious this time. "No? She seems like sugared lacquer, fake and easily scratched."

Aramis blinked, his humour dying on his tongue and offended rage rose up in its place. "_Parbleu, _Marsac, hold your tongue. What is wrong with you today?"

"What is wrong with _me _today?" Marsac's voice lowered to hiss, "I am not running around France with a _spy _whose name is whispered-"

"_Nous voilà_," Amelie called out from beyond the trees and Aramis shot Marsac a quelling glare as he urged Lance onwards.

They broke into a small clearing, a ring of stones already present and Amelie's saddlebags piled near the fire.

Aramis hummed a surprised noise. "You're good at this."

"Practice," she said with a small smile over the tiny flames, but it fell away when she glanced over his shoulder where, judging by the way shadows flickered over her face, Marsac had appeared.

When Amelie returned her attention to the fire, Aramis mouthed, "_Sois sage, _don't cause a fuss."

Marsac merely rolled his eyes but, after a glare at Amelie, settled himself and his horse at the far side of the clearing.

Aramis sighed, not understanding what was happening, but smiled when Lance neat-stepped to Hestia's side and nudged his flank against hers.

Perhaps he would take a leaf out of his heartsick horse's book, it was not as if he could continue his _wooing_, as Marsac so artfully put it, when his friend was sat right there.

Instead, he brushed Lance down and began to unpack his things, finding his food and water to place at Amelie's feet as he threw his cloak around her shoulders and brushed his hand along one arm.

He must have dragged her out of some deep thoughts because she jerked in surprise and then something like embarrassment flooded her cheeks when he smiled at her, the smile that he usually used when he wanted someone to know that they were important to him.

Until now, it had never failed to draw a similar one.

"I am called away," she said quietly, and he had to duck his head to hers to hear it, unconsciously savouring the chill breeze of her scent.

When she repeated herself, he asked in some confusion, "You're leaving?"

"I am the tide," she reminded him, "Here and gone…" _A disaster in my wake, _she didn't say out loud.

He chuckled softly, captured her chin with his hand when she tried to look into the fire. "Constant in your comings and goings, and as you will go, you will come back."

Something like distress entered her face and then she pressed a kiss to the knuckle against her jaw. "Too often for you."

"Not at all," he started with a shake of his head, prepared to explain how he adored her sense of duty, but she sighed and it wracked her whole frame in its fatigue.

"Yes, Aramis," she murmured, even as she continued to push her cheek into his palm, at once seeming to wish him closer whilst she warned him away with words. "I do not know when I'll be back, or when you're away; perhaps we will have that drink when I'm next in Paris, but otherwise..."

He frowned at her, unable to read this strange language that she was speaking to him in, but murmured a denial when she made to move and he realised that her bags were still packed for a reason.

"You mustn't go now, you haven't slept."

"Spies don't sleep," she said valiantly, but there was a tiredness in her eyes that he longed to ease.

"Then how will you dream of me?"

"With little difficulty, Aramis," she laughed quietly into his burgeoning smile, and she reached out to rest her fingers against his lips as if terrified to see the expression go.

That was when he realised, when he put all of the pieces together. Her reluctant craving of his touch, the way she flinched when he tried to protect her, how _Marsac_ treated her as if he had known what was coming.

"You're leaving," he said dully, and although they were the same words as before, they had an entirely different meaning.

This wasn't just a trip to Paris or a dash to Melun, this was a _job, _a spy's duty that would take her away for who knew how long.

Would take her from his side, where she was meant to be.

Amelie was trying to deny him the chance of forever loving her, when he had known from the beginning that there would never be a fall with her, _she_ was the one tripping _him_.

She nodded and her smile was so sad that it threatened to break his heart; there was her reluctant craving again, as if she _needed _him but would never say or even admit as much.

Aramis had no idea what to do, normally his affections were openly sought after, women simpering at him to stay a little longer as he half-heartedly begged their forgiveness and left via the window.

"This feels very odd from the other side," he managed to say with an awkward laugh.

"I am sorry," she murmured, her blue eyes almost appearing damp in the moonlight.

"Then return sooner."

Her laugh sounded a little forced and wet, but when she regarded him it was with a sombre clarity to her words. "Sometimes it is healthier to just withdraw, Aramis."

"I have already said that it isn't in me to do so," he remarked with a wry laugh, concerned when she inhaled sharply. On an instinct, he leaned forward to kiss her and she came to him so easily, and _this _is what he wanted, Amelie keen and pliant and his.

Surely this was proof that she should stay with him.

"Stop being so _éclatant_," she murmured against his lips and nipped at his smile until heat reared between them both and a truly delicious moan sounded from her throat.

He could almost feel the moment when she decided to break the kiss; almost hear the wrenching noise of her attention as it turned from him.

"Stay; leave in the morning, please," he beseeched softly, needing more time with her, hoping that he could persuade her to stay for longer. He brushed his thumb over a mark on her neck, almost invisible but for the fact that he knew he had put it there when they were on the roof.

Amelie shivered and, for a blissful moment, the heat warred and won against the sadness in her eyes. "Yes."

Aramis grinned, pleased that he had convinced her, pleased that it meant he could rise just as early as she and ride back to Paris with her, with or without Marsac.

He rearranged himself until he could tuck her under his arm and, with a contented sigh that she echoed, Amelie's cheek rested against his chest. Her pulse continued to beat a little too fast even as his slowed into a drowsy thump and he felt his eyes beginning to close.

"Do not wait for me, _mon cher_," she whispered tenderly against his chest, the endearment making him smile victoriously. It was only in the morning that he would realise that she wasn't referring to sleep.

When the sun was too high, he woke up to the gut-clawing realisation that she was gone.

Like the thief that she was, Amelie had stolen away in the night and taken his heart with him. There was an ache in his chest, a hollowness that he couldn't fill as he looked down at the place where she had laid and told him not to wait.

She belonged to France now, and not to him, wouldn't until she returned.

"Aramis," Marsac bit out angrily from over the dead fire, "Treville had orders for us today, move."

_Work, _Aramis thought numbly as he went through the motions of packing up their camp. When he tried to give Lance his morning apple, he saw discarded hay and cores on the ground, evidence of a woman who cared more about saying goodbye to his horse than to him.

_Work, _Aramis thought with a bit more passion. Work was duty, it would distract him, and if Amelie was intent on her work, so could he be.

_Work, _Aramis thought with a stab of sorrow when his fingers smoothed the fleur-de-lis symbol emblazoned on all of his gear, the one that had risked Amelie's life and yet meant more to them both than anything else.

_Work. _Once again it had taken him in a different direction to his heart.

But he would try to wait.

He would try.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

If Aramis is cresting Amelie's waves, I am just tumbling under waves of feels. I'm fairly certain that fan fiction is just a socially acceptable form of sadism.

I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and puh-_lease _let me know if you did - I cherish every reader and reviewer!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	7. The Thread

**Author's Note:**

Aramis' ghosts aren't of the floating kind, and yet she appears at a moment's notice with death in her wake and screams in her eyes. Amelie enters the lair of her predator and finds that he nests not in broken hearts but pretty books.

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**The Thread**

"Give me more work, _mon capitaine_."

"Amelie, you've been in and out of here quicker than my paperwork can follow."

"And I'm sure the Cardinal is very pleased."

"Too pleased, he wants to send you further afield."

"Fine, you know that's fine."

"It isn't the place that concerns me, it's the mission. I would recommend taking a partner."

"No, I-.. have someone in mind."

"Hm. Time was you would have baulked at needing muscle, even going so far to tell me that you only work alone."

"_Les temps changent_."

"Not too drastically, I hope."

"If that's all?"

"Yes, yes. _Bonne chance, ma fille. _Oh, and Amelie?"

"_Oui_?"

"I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but don't take anyone that I know."

"As you say, it doesn't need to be said. _Au revoir, mon pere._"

* * *

Blonde curls have haunted him for a week; a long, torturous, week of waiting that was slowly driving him insane.

He had won more duels with his brethren in the past five days than he had in the past five weeks. Coin was a ridiculous weight in his pocket that he couldn't seem to shift into wine fast enough, but he was certainly building a nice over-ground cellar in his quarters.

Aramis had moved back into his room at the garrison in order to be closer to the action, closer to _distr_action, but he had enough coin now to completely redecorate his lodgings a few streets over.

Perhaps it was finally time to stop waiting.

Marsac had been saying so from the moment that they had left that empty clearing in Fontainebleau, and Aramis hadn't the heart to check the alternate entrance of the Musketeers' stables to look for a dainty horse and her rider.

It seemed a little too much like _pining._

Besides, the girls at Madame Dupris' were starting to notice his absence, and he did so hate to disappoint.

From his sparring stance in the courtyard, he could see straight through his captain's office window and saw Treville unlock his door from the inside, despite no one having entered or left in the past hour.

Aramis flourished his hat at his captain automatically and couldn't help but wonder if the man had any idea how heartsick that he was for his spy.

Treville inclined his head and looked intently past him, a warning in his gaze.

"_En garde!_"

Aramis drew his sword up almost lazily to parry the blow, returning his attention to the fight slowly enough that his opponent frowned in affront.

"Shall we just call it my win?" he asked idly, and felt only the barest stirrings of excitement when his sparring partner jumped angrily into his next swing, projecting so vividly that even if Aramis wasn't confident of his skill, he could see the entire fight happening move-by-move.

Aramis was bored, restless, and wanted a challenge.

He disarmed his opponent summarily, hoping that some new blood would be introduced into the regiment soon.

He was getting tired of winning.

With a graceful bow at his furious challenger and the man's coin in his palm, Aramis sheathed his sword and left, passing through the archway of the garrison with a sigh.

In there, he was insulated, but all he could think of was how often Amelie had might have passed through and he had never known.

Out here, he was open to the elements, but phantom waves slapped his face whenever he thought that he saw her.

Once again, a flash of golden curls made his heart leap but he dismissed it automatically, too used to the disappointment that followed every time. He felt as if he was starting to fray at the edges.

How had Amelie managed to affect him so? Was it as Marsac said, that it was only because she had been the one to leave first, and he was harbouring some wounded pride?

He _did _feel like he would tease her mercilessly the next time that he saw her, just to see whether she was affected as he was, to see if she had _pined._

He wended his way through Paris' streets, picking paths through shouting men and idling women, all just faceless blurs as he focused on not thinking about anything, least of all mischievous blue eyes that sparkled like sapphires.

"A sou for your thoughts?"

"_Je suis désolé_, mademoiselle," he replied absently, tipping his hat as he walked onwards. If he was to make it to his landlady to collect his key before the sun set, he would need to hurry.

Distractions from distractions, his life was getting ridiculous.

Aramis froze mid-step as he realised that his heart was trying to scream something at him.

He turned back almost tentatively, but as soon as he did, he immediately took three strides before capturing a nervous smile with his beatific one.

"_Ma petite ombre,_" he murmured against lips that hesitated for a scant second before opening hungrily against his. Amelie's hands fisted in his jacket as if she had been worried that he would reject her and now couldn't bear to let him go.

Absence, it seemed, had made her heart considerably fonder.

Amidst the bustle of the street and sandwiched between large wooden booths, they were invisible. He braced a hand beside her head, settling the other on her hip as she nipped at his mouth with tiny bites that made his fingers clench on dress and mortar.

Aramis trailed kisses along her jaw and down her neck; his reward was her hot breath against his ear and the shuddering of her chest when he mouthed her skin.

"I have an offer for you," she breathed, and if her voice hadn't hitched he would have been offended.

"Not a social call then?"

There was a tiny shake of her head that stilled as soon as his teeth found her earlobe, but it was an anticipatory patience, a silent urging that made him grin even as he cursed the Heavens for sending her back with duty on her mind.

Right now, however, she was his and his alone.

"Aramis," it was a gasp of noise, edging ever so nearly to a plea, and perhaps he took a little too much satisfaction in the way that he was what occupied her thoughts now, the way that her heartbeat fluttered like a bird's under his ministrations.

Amelie was so very responsive to the little tips and tricks that he had already catalogued about her, the few chords he knew to play her like a fine instrument.

She arched her neck like the smooth beam of a violin and Aramis couldn't resist dragging his teeth across her jugular to make her moan, making him wonder whether, with time, he could elicit a symphony from her throat.

"I'll take your offer."

"You don't even know what it is," she laughed breathily.

"Five days was too long a wait," he mumbled against her heated skin, pink from his attention and the blood he felt racing underneath.

Amelie stilled then and her chin came down to regard him carefully. "I said not to."

He caught the downturn of her lips with his and sighed into the sweetness of her mouth, "It was agony."

Aramis had expected her to laugh, but instead that same level of distress that he had seen nearly a week ago crept back onto her face. He didn't understand, he was offering his heart to her and she wouldn't _take it._

Amelie's hands tugged him closer and he was helpless to refuse. It was so easy to forget everything when anise bloomed on his tongue, when Amelie nibbled on his lips, when her fingers curled towards his exposed collarbone.

"Where were you going," she murmured, licking at his lips when he tried to distract her, "Walking so intently?"

"My rooms," he groaned when she suckled his tongue to make him speak, "On Rue de l'Abbaye."

"You chose a house near a church?"

"I am a devout man of God, Amelie," he whispered before biting the shell of her ear, absorbing the slight buck of her body against his with relish.

Her laugh was light and gasping. "Yes, I'm sure the wealthy widows appreciate your attention almost as much as the Holy Father does."

"Sacrilege," he reprimanded lowly, pleasantly surprised to feel her shiver at the commanding timbre of his voice and hear the catch in hers.

"_Non, il est vrai_."

"Being right can still be wrong, and being wrong can be very right," he teased, and Amelie rolled her eyes at the lewd implication.

Aramis was content to watch her compose herself, watch her reapply the layers of self-control until she was the picture of poise, and then he leaned in and kissed her ever-so-sweetly, pulling away slightly until she came forward to prolong their touching.

Just as she had to him when they were on the roof in Melun.

Some of the layers fell away when two bright points of colour flared in her cheeks, and he silently congratulated himself.

Amelie smoothed the lapels of his jacket and then scored her nails where they parted, the flash of pleasure and pain making a delighted grunt escape his throat, and then she demurely slipped out of his slack hands and walked off.

He fisted his hands against the wall, took a deep breath, and then jogged to catch up with her, matching the ridiculous smirk on her face.

This was definitely the best game that he had ever played.

If only she would continue to play it with him.

A sigh heaved through his chest and then Amelie looped her arm through his, her head resting briefly on his shoulder. "Where to, _abbé_?"

Aramis smiled down at her evident amusement and wondered how she would react if she knew how close he had been to doing the work of God, how even now he occasionally thought about living the simple life of an abbot.

He remembered her remark from Melun, that he would not enjoy boredom, and had been convinced that she was wrong. Now, however, after being exposed to Amelie's reckless adventures and mischief, his life had felt quite lacking without it and had forced him into seeking out swordplay.

Swordplay and women, but the latter had been mostly quashed with the memory of Amelie still sweet on his lips.

Who knew how long she would belong to France and not to him, next time?

Despite that concern though, he was still taking her to the one place that he never took women, because Amelie was no normal woman.

Not to him.

* * *

She was so weak.

Amelie was pressed to Aramis' side with her heart fluttering happily in her chest and she was well aware of how she was torturing herself.

And yet, the chance had presented itself, as if God himself had arranged the necessity of needing another pair of hands, and Amelie had thrown herself at the chance.

Or, more precisely, she had thrown herself at Aramis.

'_Don't take anyone that I know,_' Treville had said, and even Amelie didn't know how she would weasel her way out of this one if she was found out.

But Aramis was like a homing beacon; she had thought that missing Paris was bad enough, but knowing that Aramis was there? Charming, delightful, _bright, _Aramis? She had followed the thread of absolution to him as soon as opportunity had allowed.

"So weak," she muttered under her breath, and instead focused on the warmth at her side, at the simple joy of being with Aramis even knowing that she shouldn't be.

He shepherded her off the street and towards a modest two-storey house with two front doors. After being entertained by his flirting with a landlady who had to be at least three times his age, he unlocked the other door and ushered her up the staircase on the other side.

It was clean, surprisingly so for a Musketeer, but it fit with his nature. There was definitely an order to the rooms, no clutter, but then she found bookcases spilling over with parchments and books, stories and psalms and poems and it was just very _Aramis._

Very calm and collected until it came to romance, then it was unrestrained and overflowing.

Amelie picked up the most well-worn book, its spine fraying with use and the paper slick from loving fingers. With a smile, she settled into an ugly but comfortable chair and delicately examined something that must mean a lot to Aramis.

That was where he found her after he had disappeared into his bedroom, stopping short on the threshold of the room and staring at her before she looked up from her page.

There was a strange look on his face, one that raced from surprise to delight and underlying it all was a sense of vulnerability.

It had startled him, but he liked seeing her there, and Amelie was torn between claiming the spot and running from his look of adoration.

The seat would sit empty for too long if she staked it as hers, and she couldn't do that to him, not to the man who hoarded '_Les Amours_' prose and wore his gallant heart on his sleeve.

"Antoine de Nervèze?" she asked instead, trying to change the subject.

Aramis looked at her hands and shrugged. "He dedicated so much of his work to French nobility, I dedicate my life to them as a Musketeer; it made sense."

"You mean you empathised with his tales of love and religion?"

He raised an eyebrow at her laugh and said wryly, "Is it wrong to seek a happy ending?"

"The fact that you read them as happy endings confirms everything about you, Aramis," she replied with dry amusement, casting a glance at stories that she had always considered quite tragic.

"I thought all delicately reared women would agree with me," he chuckled, but it stopped when he realised that she had stiffened. "Amelie, I apologise, I've upset you."

"No, you haven't," she denied quickly, for how could she tell him that the very fact that she disagreed with fairy tales was what had caused her such grief as a child, had led to her midnight escapades that would eventually end with a return to her home being burned to the ground?

The girl who had refused to sit still and marry, had grown up to be the woman who longed for the ability to tarry, but could never manage it, not when there was danger to flirt with.

Not a normal woman, not a normal spy, not a normal Musketeer.

Amelie stood abruptly, now knowing for certain that this idea had been folly. Not just seeking Aramis out for help, but for thinking that she could entertain any notion of happiness whilst wreathing the Cardinal's shadows.

She took a step but was unsure where she was going, whether it was to the door or to Aramis.

He stood in her way regardless, hands coming up to gently frame her jaw as he regarded her seriously, brown eyes dark with regret. "Don't go, _ma marée_, please. What did you need me for?"

Amelie had a very studiously ignored feeling that he silently said, '_I'll give you anything_'_, _and so she silently replied, '_I want everything_'_._

But neither was uttered, so she pushed a cheek into his palms and answered his question. "Another delivery, Treville thinks that there might be some trouble."

Aramis frowned and she was fairly certain that it was because Treville was sending her into danger, as if she hadn't fought off men twice her size and come out the victor. "And does he know that you've sought me out?"

"No," she drew the sound out a little guiltily, and apparently it was the right thing to do because a smile tilted his lips that turned into a grimace when she said, "In fact, it might be best that we tell no one."

"I know you're referring to Marsac."

"Infer what you will," she replied succinctly, not wanting to badmouth his 'friend' that would surely get him into far more trouble than she ever could.

At least she had the manner and standing that befitted a Musketeer, even if Marsac didn't.

That was when she noticed that Aramis had taken off his distinctive shoulder-guard; he must have done it when he was in the other room.

"How did you know I was going to ask-"

"I won't risk your safety, again," he interrupted ruefully. "And of course I'll go with you, even if it means I go as a mere citizen of France."

The warmth in her chest began to gutter a little as she grasped that she was forcing him to hide an aspect that deserved respect and loyalty, hide his fire from the shadows that threatened to consume her.

Nevertheless, she found herself saying, "Only for two days, then you can resume thrashing your brothers."

His mouth dropped open. "How did you- Treville."

"You're gaining quite the reputation as a fantastic swordsman, you know?" she said with a smile that might have been impressed.

Aramis returned a smug one. "A spy in Treville's office, should you be telling me that?"

"Even he doesn't trust me with state secrets," she said, and it was mostly true, Treville tried not to place those burdens on her shoulders.

She still knew a few though, but it probably wasn't best to tell Aramis _how _she knew them, yet.

"So it's common knowledge that I'm a – what was it – fantastic swordsman?"

"Why, Aramis," she replied sweetly to his cocky question, "You're the talk of the garrison."

"I am?"

Amelie pushed the book into his hands and sauntered away, tossing over her shoulder a sly, "And to think you called _me _a – what was it, thief? – when first we spoke."

A flustered laugh escaped him and then he muttered something about Musketeers who should have better things to do than gossip and slander his good name.

"A _very _good name, I've heard. In fact, if the rumours are to be believed, _everyone's_ heard your good name on someone's lips."

Aramis flushed, only slightly, but enough to make her laugh and for him to regard her curiously, as if she had shocked him. What did he expect, that she would forget – or, indeed, ignore – his reputation as a veritable scoundrel?

It was why his claim of waiting for her was sitting awkwardly in her chest.

Amelie could not even think of trying to tame those flirtatious flames.

"Come on, Casanova," she teased when he examined her for something, probably anger or jealousy. He wouldn't find it, even if they had such a claim on each other; Aramis was a far too generous man, and Amelie a far too practical woman.

Spies did not _settle down._

All fires burnt out when not tended, and Aramis, who burned brightest, would need more tending than she could give.

* * *

**Author's Note: **

When I started this fic, I had no idea how truly difficult Aramis' _ways _would be. It's not just about the coming together of a spy and a soldier, now, it's also about how to love a flirt - or, perhaps, the difficulties of loving one.

Please, commiserate with me and write me a review! I adore each of you and I'd love to chat! :)

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	8. The Needle

**Author's Note: **

Aramis sees that his rose has many thorns, and knives, and guns, and a wealth of secrets that she might just spill if he kisses her often enough. Amelie examines her thorny feelings for the attractive soldier and throws caution to the wind when the horses start screaming.

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**The Needle**

"Tell me," Aramis called breathlessly as he watched Amelie rein in with a beautiful grin on her face, "At what point does this become _work _for you?"

Her laugh layered the night-thickened air. "When I get paid for it, _et tu_?"

"The same," he agreed with a reluctant laugh.

They had once again been pursued from Paris but Aramis hadn't even needed to urge Lance into following Hestia, his mount had fixated upon the mare as soon one dainty hoof had hit the courtyard.

Aramis felt as if he would be a rather huge hypocrite if he told his horse to stop being so obvious.

Amelie's eyes trailed over the stiff line of his shoulders, and her voice was soft when she said, "We can stop for the night if you'd like?"

"I can ride 'til dawn."

"Of course you can," she drawled, not sparing his dignity now, "And I can laugh when I'm tying you to your saddle so you don't fall off in your sleep."

He tried so valiantly to not yawn, it ached his throat to hold it back, but Amelie noticed it anyway and clucked to Lance to beckon him closer.

"Turncoat," he muttered, but Lance just harrumphed at him.

Amelie leaned over to stroke his mount's ears and then tilted her face up for a kiss. Naturally, Aramis gave it to her, and naturally, the taste of sweet anise distracted him as she stole his reins and tied them to her saddle horn.

With a snicker, she set their mounts to a leisurely speed and asked, "Have you slept at all, lately?"

"Have you?"

"I have spent a total of eight hours in a bed, these past two weeks." She shrugged at his raised brow and added, "Everything else is either in the saddle or on the forest floor."

"That.. is astounding. Does it bother you?"

Her mouth opened and closed, as if she had been about to give him a lie but wanted to tell the truth. "I've been doing it for six years."

"You aren't old enough," he replied, fighting against a wave of sleep that accompanied the sudden calmness, the smooth roll of Lance's back as Amelie kept their pace slow and steady.

She threw him an amused glance. "I was always a nosy child, now I use it for better purpose."

"I can't see Treville letting a young woman risk her life-"

"He didn't have a choice, I wanted it," she interrupted tersely, and he realised that he was broaching some dangerous ground, like before when she had been sat so prettily in his rooms, looking as if she belonged there.

He let the silence stretch, choosing his words carefully, "Do you still?"

She sighed, a little tiredly, a lot resignedly, and he wanted to hold her close. "I miss Paris terribly, but this is in my blood, it's…" she trailed off to look at the star-studded sky and smile. "It's life."

The moonlight caught her cheeks and painted her in slashes of light and dark, and he felt that it was strangely symbolic. Her hands were still in night's shadows but her face and straight spine in the bright beams – she enchanted him as if she were the lady of the moon, veiled and pure.

"A dangerous life," he remarked quietly, simultaneously both amazed and concerned by her apparent love of adventure. How often had she put her slender neck on the line for France? The thought chilled him despite the balmy temperature.

Amelie laughed, and it was fond and light. "That's what makes it worth living."

"The duties of a Musketeer," he remarked sombrely, but she just nodded happily.

"_Exactement_. Now, sleep. I'll keep watch."

_Sleep, _sleep in the scant few hours that he had with her? He was exhausted, but passing up the chance to learn more about her was unthinkable.

Besides, he hated sleeping in the saddle, it made him stiff.

He reached for his water and surreptitiously splattered some on his face as he drank. "Who keeps watch when you sleep?"

Amelie patted Hestia's neck tenderly. "Who do you think? Four legs aren't quite the same as a four-poster, but she's smooth and alert."

"You must have been together a while to trust her so."

"She was a gift, already well-trained when she came to me."

"A gift from a lover?"

Amelie scoffed, which he took as a good sign. "Decidedly not, aside from being very out-of-bounds, his idea of a 'good night' is building model boats and spouting _misogyny_." Aramis' interest was piqued, but she merely flashed him an entertained – and yet very warning – look. "It's more than your life's worth."

"I hold my life very highly, actually."

"So think how valuable that information must be."

He debated on it but then fixated on the word that she had said with such irritation. "He knows what you do, then?"

That depressed him a little; it wasn't as if he had thought that he was the only one who knew of her work, but another man who gave her expensive – and well-thought-out – gifts for doing it?

It made him shift uncomfortably, jealousy a small roiling in his stomach.

"Indeed, he's very interested, but he finds it _droll _rather than important. My tales are diverting, not heroic."

"I imagine they're both," he said gracefully, and she seemed pleased when he added, "You do France favour by fighting for her."

He meant that, even if it worried him to think of her skirting danger every night.

Amelie sighed, "If only more people saw it that way."

"Do they not?"

She nibbled her lip and took a deep breath, seeming to steady herself for what she was about to say. "I am, as you so courteously put it, a delicately-reared woman. I've found that men don't like to be reminded that the fairer sex can be.. sneaky."

"Men are simple beings," he agreed with a shrug. "They don't understand complexity."

She laughed, her eyes sparkling as she asked, "How is honouring one's duty, complex? France looked after me and now I return the favour." When he looked at her in confusion, she continued, dancing over the emotion in her words, "I was orphaned, the man who took me in had pledged his life to the Musketeers, and so do I."

It came to him with a noise of understanding; the fond looks, the glare he had received, why he and Amelie had both been reprimanded for over-stepping the boundaries and flirting. "Treville."

That suspended sword over their heads suddenly seemed a lot closer.

"Our dear Captain," she replied fondly, "Who used my rebellious streak to his advantage and taught me the art of espionage."

Aramis tried to think of the stoic man as a loving father and found only that his gruff affection would suit Amelie. It became very clear how she could come and go as she pleased, how she had thrived as a Musketeer's spy.

"You wound him around your little finger?"

"What sort of daughter would I be, if I did that?" she asked with a sly smile. "Paris had a need, and I merely fulfilled it."

"Does Treville not worry for you?"

"_That _question borders on the insulting. I am very capable of looking after myself."

He would have considered arguing that if she hadn't thrown him such a darkling look. It wasn't that he thought her incapable, but what if she were to go up against armed guards or, God forbid, bandits?

"I do not think I could allow a daughter of mine to-"

Amelie made a noise of disgust. "_L'habit ne fait pas le moine_, judgement without knowledge is a downfall that leads fools to their dooms, and what keeps a woman indoors where it's safe."

"Is that so terrible?"

"Yes! If they long to roam then they should do so. I have tricked many a man into thinking me harmless before-" she cut herself off abruptly, glancing at him before saying tightly, "I will not be cowed into marriage with a man who thinks me worthy only of _babies._"

Aramis felt as if she had shot him, directly through the chest so that he reeled backwards. He had only meant to imply that he cared for her safety, that he worried for her, but he had evoked a reaction quite unlike the one he had expected.

Evidently, this was a topic that had its roots twisted in something bitter.

Everything was starting to make sense. Her reckless abandon, her distaste of boredom, her reaction to being generalised as well-born – Amelie fought against stereotype.

It was a fight that, outside of the Musketeers, the world would not let her win.

"I was betrothed to a woman, betrothed to a simple life," he said into the harsh silence, surprising himself as much as her, but she had showed him a wound and he would do the same. Old grief reared its head, but it quietened under Amelie's soft hand on his. "My reputation preceded me and she was sent away, later I found my way to Paris."

Where he had broken one stereotype, at least – he had thrown off the shackles of village life by learning the art of sword until he could best everyone he met.

Everyone until Treville, who had taken him in, too.

Perhaps he and Amelie were even more similar than he had realised. Had her life been simple before she was orphaned, was that what had prompted her to seek dangerous pursuits?

She offered him an apologetic look as she murmured, "Simplicity was your choice, it wasn't mine."

"I wonder whether it was the right one, sometimes."

Amelie pulled back as if his reply had disappointed her, but then she laughed awkwardly and said, "I was to be betrothed once."

The reveal shocked him, especially so soon after her obvious distaste at the _worthiness_ of marriage. He frowned in sympathy, thinking that perhaps her betrothed had died, but she laughed again, a strange look on her face.

"I ran away until my parents changed their minds."

The look had been discomfort.

He blinked at her, tried to focus on her words rather than trying to ascertain her past, tripped up on how determined she had been to not conform. "You.. didn't want to be betrothed?"

She shuddered delicately. "Heavens, no. I had far too much to do before becoming a wife."

"Could you not have done those things, anyway?"

She levelled a disbelieving look at him, saying sarcastically, "Yes, my husband would have readily accepted my desire to travel and give my life for France."

Aramis hummed in surprised agreement, she too easily disappeared to be anything akin to a normal wife. "It was his loss."

Amelie flushed and smiled sunnily. "I know."

His tiredness dissipated against that smile, but its sudden presence made him realise that she had feared causing offence.

No, it wasn't just that, she had feared him _rejecting _her for who she was, as so many others had done so in the past.

He had started to think that he didn't understand her, but perhaps her complexities were actually stunningly clear. For so long had his work intrigued women, but it was the intrigue of a wife who wanted something different, and they pouted when he was called away.

Could he judge Amelie so harshly for doing what he did, for leaving before the dawn to avoid the heartbreak? He could not look at her with blinkers on, as if through the eye of the needle, not when she did everything for the sake of duty.

Even Musketeers, men like Marsac who were supposed to understand duty, had spat the word _spy _in their time, judged her for helping their country in her own, uniquely feminine way.

Not once had Amelie derailed from a mission, allowed herself to be distracted; she was dutiful to the last.

How could anyone find that anything other than utterly enchanting?

* * *

Amelie felt as if she was balancing on the edge of a very sharp knife and she wasn't sure on what side she wanted to fall, and she knew that she would fall eventually, because the angles were against her.

Aramis hadn't quite seen her secrets laid bare, but he knew a fair few now, and the way that he kept looking over made her think that perhaps her shadows were just too dark.

And yet, he still didn't know how truly abyssal they were.

He was starting to sag in his saddle now, hat tipping forward as he tried to stay awake – the splash of water from earlier evidently hadn't done the trick.

Guilt assuaged her in tiny pinpricks; if she had known just how tired he was, she would have at least sought him out tomorrow instead.

And yet, she adored him being at her side, at his fire warming her smile. She was selfish, so incredibly selfish, but then, Aramis didn't seem to mind.

He had insisted on coming with her. Maybe he truly had come to terms with both the nature of her and her work – even if he had no idea that occasionally her fingers were dipped in blood.

Even so – or maybe, because of it – they were destined to merely dip into each other's lives. He was too bright and she too dark; they could not exist together, but perhaps, whenever she was home, they could come to a compromise.

A compromise of fire and shadows.

If the past week was any indication, nothing could keep her from thinking about Aramis and eventually seeking him out, she had become addicted to his promise of absolution, to the taste of red wine and honey on his lips.

And if she remembered – with a little smile – how he had welcomed her return, was it possible that he would always welcome her like that, with open arms that she all too happily fell into?

If the coming back was so sweet, the going wasn't quite so bad – and she was the tide, wasn't she? Always constant in her comings and goings, and Aramis understood that, understood _duty._

He was a Musketeer, too, after all.

Amelie warily examined the thrill of happiness that had flared at seeing Aramis and now threatened to burst into fireworks.

Threatened, because that pure delight was a prize too precious to assume so easily, she had to be certain, be _sure _that Aramis would not take her departures as slights, for she would always come back.

She just wasn't sure that she could ask him to wait for her.

Amelie had not danced in and out of the darkness for all of this time and not known that bordellos to whore-houses were frequented by every Musketeer in France. They were appropriate diversions for the men who were married to France, for was that not part of the vows they took when they pledged their lives?

Did she not repeat that vow every single night when she took another thread of darkness into her heart?

No, she wouldn't ask Aramis to wait, to extend that pledge to her when she was away so often and for so long.

Nor would she pledge her own heart to a flirt that already held so many. It couldn't break if she kept it close, even if it yearned to bask in the fire's glow.

They rode in restful silence, and it was when she felt herself being lulled to sleep only by Aramis' comforting presence and not Hestia's usual slow, rocking stride, that Amelie realised just how silent everything was.

Hestia had stiffened, her steps deliberate and ears flicking to the sides when an owl swooped low overhead. Its tawny wings were fully outstretched – not hunting, but spooked.

The road that they were on was by no means small, but it was lined by infuriatingly close trees that even her sharp eyes couldn't penetrate. That thrill of happiness warped into eager anxiety. _This _she knew what to do, she understood this moment before the storm, not the unfamiliar stirrings of an emotion she refused to examine.

The air was still, anticipatory, and if Amelie hadn't seen Aramis' arm nonchalantly reach over his shoulder, the resounding boom of his arquebus would have terrified her.

Instead, she added another image to her memory bank, of Aramis astride Lance, both of them confident and sure as Aramis shot at the unknown. Amelie's heart did a strange twist in her chest.

The silence well and truly broken, chaos reigned.

Four men in dirty leather spilled out of the trees in front of them, one of them falling in a dead slump as Aramis' truly astounding accuracy hit home.

Amelie looked around from Hestia's steady back, watching their perimeter in case there were more. Lance thundered forward, Aramis balancing with well-accustomed skill as Lance reared to catch one of the three men in the face. He came heavily to ground, landing a hoof directly onto ribs that snapped loudly.

The stallion was a true warhorse; he deserved every apple in her bags.

Aramis and Lance moved like a unit, the stallion giving nary a twitch when Aramis drew his rapier in a reassuring 'shing' of noise as he dismounted. Lance raced for the safety of the road behind them as Aramis engaged the remaining two attackers with a speed that would have had her stopping and admiring if it wasn't for the dark figure who flanked them.

Amelie watched the man prowl, thinking himself unseen and her harmless. He was forced to re-evaluate when she tossed one of her two smaller knives and pegged him in the throat, his gurgled cry too deep within the trees to be seen or heard by anyone, especially Aramis, who had dispatched one of his attackers with fantastic efficiency.

Her tack jingled as Amelie grabbed her pistol and slid from the saddle, and Aramis turned to check on her.

Turned from the final man to ensure that she was safe.

When her heart twisted strangely again, it hurt.

She immediately reached for her second knife, uncaring if Aramis saw her kill as long as it kept him safe. Her fingers had only brushed the hilt when pain flinched over Aramis' face.

He stumbled.

Behind him, the man with Aramis' blood on his sword, stared in stupefaction at Aramis' falling form. He would wear the expression in the afterlife, because Amelie's knife had sprouted from his chest, even as her own squeezed in terrified anxiety.

"Aramis!" she called as she ran towards him, and he struggled onto his knees to smile dazedly at her.

A shot from the woods thudded into the back of his shoulder and it sent him crashing onto the ground.

Amelie screamed in furious despair and snatched Aramis' pistol from the back of his belt, firing blindly into the darkness with hers and waiting for their attacker's muzzle flash to fire Aramis'. The rogue bullet dug somewhere into her stomach but she kept her aim steady.

Her shot wasn't as well-placed as Aramis', but it did the job.

As soon as she heard the pained cry over the ringing in her ears, she fell to her knees and scrabbled for her dress, tearing strips of the red fabric to bundle against the blood that was starting to pool in Aramis' back.

She gagged at the wet cloth, that nauseous sensation of sodden coarseness, but took a steadying breath when the wound stopped weeping.

With a heave that was both anxious and gentle, she checked for his pulse and nearly sagged in relief at the steady beat. It was slower than her own, but at least it was there, at least _he _was there.

The air was deathly still, they were surrounded by bodies, and Aramis' eyes were still closed, a faint puckering of pain on his brow.

Amelie's heart raced as a hot, wet pressure at the back of her throat threatened to consume her. She couldn't resist tenderly pushing his hair off of his forehead, her fingers leaving an unsettling streak of red.

He would be okay; she would make sure of that.

Aramis and his love for a simple life would not have a simple death.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I can feel your needling glares, please mind my eyes, I need those to write more chapters!

Yes, these two are ridiculous, I know that all too well - how about screaming at them with me by writing a review?

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	9. The Stitch

**Author's Note:**

Aramis is _so _difficult to write as the canon, flirty so-and-so that he is, against a spitfire female OC. She won't take any of his shit, he's just trying to get into her pants, I'm tearing my hair out - it's exhausting. Still, enjoy my labours!

Aramis could charm socks off of a fox and Amelie watches a master at work.

* * *

**CHAPTER NINE**

**The Stitch**

When Aramis awoke, it was to the feeling of having been dragged behind his horse for a few miles.

When he forced his eyes open and didn't recognise his surroundings but did recognise the feel of rope burn around his chest, he thought that he might well have been. Amelie must have lashed him to Lance and taken them to safety-

_Amelie._

He tried to sit up but a line of fire cut across his back as well as a throbbing ache in his shoulder. The first a sword wound, the second a gun – and, really, he shouldn't know those so well. He managed to move his arm to gently touch his chest and couldn't feel any blood, which meant that the bullet must still be inside, wonderful.

Lifting his head off of the small pillow of blankets that he was inexplicably rolled up in, he caught sight of Amelie by the fire and his pulse jumped at the sight of her, anxiety burning away the lingering fog of being unconscious.

He moved a hand to lean upwards, and Amelie span in a flurry of red skirts and a furious inhaled breath. On her wrists were two leather guards, in her hands were two pistols – one of them was his – and her blue eyes glittered almost dangerously as she seemed utterly prepared to shoot an army.

To keep him safe.

When she realised that the noise had been him, the breath whooshed out of her and she fell towards him, the pistols safely discarded by her feet as her fingers lifted to his brow. "Awake now? You seem a little cooler," her words were practical, but there was a painful amount of anguish in her voice.

"Awake now?" he questioned, his mouth dry until Amelie reached over his hip to hand him a water skin.

She hummed an assent, her fingers wonderfully cool against his forehead as she smoothed his hair back. He turned into the touch, brushing a kiss over the palm of her hand until she breathed easier.

"You were feverish for a bit, thrashed when I took this out." At 'this', she reached into one of the startlingly well-made bracers and drew out a bullet.

There was a distinct green tinge to her expression as she examined it, before clenching her fingers around the ball and meeting his eyes with alarming distress in her blue ones.

"Aramis, I am so sorry, I dragged you into this and all that's happened is a lack of sleep, horse chases, and blood."

Aramis watched her carefully and tried to understand what was happening – maybe he wasn't quite sane. _She _was the one apologising to him, when all he had done was brought her trouble and been unable to keep her safe?

It was one thing to think that Amelie prowled the night and said that she could take care of herself, it was another to see it happen – or, at least, assume that it happened, for he hadn't actually seen her.

A part of him that was surging with protective urges and a desire of anise, rather wished he had.

"The horse chases were diverting," he said, trying to make her smile. But she just searched his face, unease marring her brow until he began to worry. "I would have spared you the blood, if I could."

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, because she sighed and it was so terribly sad.

When she looked at him again, it was with forlorn resignation. "They hurt you, I couldn't let that pass," she said it with utter confidence, but as if she expected him to recoil in disgust.

Realisation hit him like she did when she sneaked up on him, unexpected and shocking.

How long had it been – a week? – since he had discovered that she was a spy, and yet she had withdrawn from him every time Marsac had called her murderer, darkened whenever she talked about leaving.

_Men don't like to be reminded that the fairer sex can be sneaky, _she had said, and he hadn't understood the tiny glance she had cast his way.

It had been one of trepidation.

"Amelie," he said almost uncertainly, for surely she already knew how he felt? "I know you killed those men."

She flinched as if she had been slapped, and Aramis couldn't reach for her fast enough when she leaned away from him, as if trying to lean away from his words.

She truly didn't know.

Aramis captured her smooth cheeks in his palms, wincing inwardly when he realised how callused his fingers were. Amelie was the silk to his leather, emblazoned with the pure gold thread of the fleur-de-lis on a sea of ever-changing blue.

There was so much uncertainty in her eyes, and it truly astounded him, even as her fingers quested tentatively over his.

Both hands that had held weapons and killed.

But it was only ever for France.

"You," he said in quiet wonder, and couldn't help himself from leaning forward and saying against her lips, "Are beautiful, _ma petite ombre._"

She made a noise of surprise, nipping his lip before nibbling her own and saying doubtfully, "What do you mean by that?"

"I may only be a lowly soldier but I do know the rudiments of espionage," he replied wryly, earning a glimmer of a glare.

There was such wildness in her nature, untamed beauty that had him forever wanting to harbour her safe and close.

There was also blood in her depths, and the spy who named her horse the goddess of home, didn't know how to wipe it clean.

"As you said, you couldn't let them pass," he exhaled in soft wonder, "What is that if not duty?"

"Dangerous duty," she clarified, still clearly expecting him to run.

"The duties of a Musketeer," he confirmed, and felt a painful knot loosen in his chest when she seemed to sigh in relief. It made him smile. "So surprised?"

She snorted delicately, but pushed her cheek into his palm as if seeking comfort. "You need look no further than Marsac to see the normal reaction."

"Marsac is, amongst other things, a fool," he said with wry fondness. "A loyal one, but a fool nonetheless." Amelie opened her mouth to say something so he kissed her soundly before continuing, "He is wrong about you, but I would trust him with my life."

Amelie hummed in disapproval. "I wouldn't."

"Then you are very untrusting, _ma marée._"

"Tell our dear Captain, that."

"I'd rather not, thank you," he said dryly. He cared not for state secrets, but that wouldn't stop Treville from putting him on some godforsaken mission into the wilderness just in case.

Amelie was worth losing his commission over, even if she wouldn't take his heart. It was enough to feel hers beating steadily against his chest.

It was enough until he could convince her to take it.

His hand moved to settle at her hip and she flinched. He drew back in concern, worried that she would reject him, but then he felt dampness on his fingers.

He looked down and saw red, but it wasn't just the red of her dress, it was a darker stain of red that was creeping from her waist and now stained his skin.

"Amelie-" he started, touching her hip again and felt a tear in the fabric, felt the slickness of bloodied flesh underneath. His heart stuttered. "Amelie, you're bleeding."

"It's fine," she said stiffly, and tried to push his arm away, confirming that it was painful – Marsac did the same thing.

"Why haven't you sewn it up?" She flushed a rather fetching shade of pink that would have shocked him into a smile if he wasn't so concerned. "You can't sew?"

She glared at him, making her more endearing even as his fingers itched to stop the bleeding. "Of course I can sew, I can sew very well, do you see the stitching on my wrist guard? I did that."

"It's very good," he remarked solemnly, trying to hide amusement. She looked as if she risked raging around the clearing and making the wound more serious.

Amelie muttered under her breath, "I just can't do it on myself."

He blinked in surprise, but her wince when she tried to move made it all fade as he focused on the task at hand. She looked as if she was about to order him to stay still so he interrupted quickly, "I won't move, but I must stitch it, _ma marée._"

She grimaced and gritted her teeth, but after seeing his plaintive – and he could be stubborn too – expression, rose and headed for their saddlebags. She went to hers first, pulling a bottle of what definitely looked like wine, and then to his to retrieve his medical supplies.

When she returned, it was with a sheepish smile, "I had to use them once already, to remove the bullet."

He waved her off, a bizarre swell of emotion at the thought of her not only removing it, but keeping it, as if to remind herself that it was definitely out and that he was going to be okay.

It was the sort of thing that he would do.

He deftly threaded the needle, and looked past to see Amelie regarding it as if it would bite her. It wasn't exactly appropriate, but he kissed her anyway, hard and fast until her eyelids fluttered, and then he murmured, "Drink."

She uncorked her wine and did so, after a distasteful glance at his hand, and then exposed her hip for him to clean. It was worse than he had expected, not an easy sword slash at all, but a tearing burn that seeped.

A gunshot. She had taken a gunshot for him.

Later, he would whisper her praises and thank her properly, but for now he was too concerned about the angry wound.

The first swipe of the drenched strip of cloth had her inhaling, the second, hissing, and by the third she was gnashing her teeth.

She was acting so much like one of his Musketeer brothers that it almost made him laugh.

Instead, he tried to distract her and nodded his head at the tiny stitches on her wrist guards. "That's very neat."

"Don't patronise me, Aramis," she seethed, but it was pain that made her angry, not him.

He shook his head in amused denial but moved on regardless, discarding the bloody cloth to splay his fingers either side of the wound and push the needle in.

Amelie swore in Latin and Aramis smiled despite himself; here was the spy, the dark blue iris that rode through the night but managed to make swearing sound delicate. "What do you do if you're on the road?"

"I try not to bleed out."

"You just leave them?"

Amelie sighed irritably, "Look, I don't often get caught, and when I do, I don't particularly like people touching me, especially people that aren't supposed to know I'm female."

He sighed in reluctant acceptance; she was too secretive to ask for help, even when it meant that she would be in pain.

But Amelie let _him_ tend to her.

Pride was a smug smile on his face, which she caught with an amused grimace. "Don't get used to this."

He gave her a surprised look. "I don't want to, stop getting into scrapes."

"You can talk, I saw the new one on your chest," she said idly, mistakenly telling him that she paid as much attention to him as he to her. And it _was_ new, he had received it the day after she had left when he had been distracted by a passing flash of blonde.

That heat started on his torso again, the tell-tale sign of her gaze and the intent behind it. He couldn't stop himself from preening and saying idly, "I have others."

Her lip quirked into a smirk and he knew that if he met her eye, he would not be able to finish his neat stitches. But, oh, how he wanted to look at her, especially when she murmured hotly, "I'm sure you do."

"You can see them if you like," he offered gallantly.

She swigged from the bottle and laughed through her teeth. "Remind me when I'm not being stitched like a kipper." He looked up at that strange phrase and she waved a dismissive hand. "It's an English phrase. Pain's confusing me."

"I didn't know you had been to England," he murmured as he continued his ministrations, but he shouldn't have been surprised, really. Her work would take her everywhere, in fact, she probably knew more languages than he did, she was already comfortable enough to smatter Latin into her conversation.

"Only briefly, just to acquaint myself. I haven't been sent there." _Yet_, was what she almost said, and the unsaid word hung uncomfortably in the air between them.

A week had been a long time without her, a month would be unbearable, but England? That could take her away for months, even a year if the brewing unrest across the Channel threatened to spike.

He knew then, that for all of her perfection, if he heard the island's name drop from her lips, his patience would not last.

He could only hope that something would change before then.

"Hey," she called softly until he met her eye and her smile soothed his distress. "I am too young and too inexperienced to go to England."

"But if asked…?"

"Aramis," she chided, her head tilting to the side, a flush in her cheeks and the wine half gone. "It would be an order, and don't say that you wouldn't do the same."

He sighed, "_Vrai_, but I don't have to like it."

"You know, it's a good thing you're so handsome, you're awfully keen considering I have only spent a collective two days with you."

"And both of them have been at gun point, I think that affects the time scale."

Amelie hummed agreement around the wine bottle. "Combat years are much like dog ones. How long have we known each other then?"

"Years," he murmured, and smiled when she did, a pinker blush on her cheeks when she ducked her head. It was so very endearing that he had to hold himself back from hurrying and possibly missing a stitch.

She watched him carefully, her fingers clenching and unclenching – he wasn't sure whether it was to strangle him or run her fingers through his hair, but then she asked, "Do you remember that I said you fidget?"

He nodded in dubious humour. "Yes, on that roof in Melun."

With a pleased smile at his memory, she continued, "I stand by that, but for two activities that you focus so intently on – it is like watching a big cat, perfectly patient and precise."

"And what are they?"

"Shooting and sewing," she commented with a swig of her wine. "It is _captivante_."

"I'm always very precise, no matter what it is that I put my attention to," he replied with a sly smile, and had to pause when her snickering made her shake. He only had the knot to tie off and he was enjoying her laughter, so he added, "Especially things beginning with 's'."

"Sulking?" she asked cheekily, and grinned when he leaned in to lick the wine from her tongue. "Sucking?" she murmured, an eager little noise sounding when he pulled her full lower lip into his mouth.

"Seducing?" he inquired huskily, relishing her throaty moan.

"Definitely," she whispered, "Too good."

He rose up onto his knees, wary of her wound, but when he lifted his arms to frame her face, his whole back seized up in pain.

He couldn't hold back the grunt of pain and she froze against him. "Your back."

Judging by the position and absolute agony of it – which had been conveniently forgotten when he was worried about Amelie – it was going to need stitches.

Stitches in a place that he couldn't reach, armed with only a spy who didn't like to sew skin.

How did he end up in these situations?

"I can do it."

Aramis pulled back to look at her, ignoring the pain to gently cup her face. There was a stubbornness to her jaw, the same one that he had probably had when he insisted on helping her. Relief loosened his muscles. He had seen her work; her stitches were neat, like his.

That was when he realised that she was going distinctly green.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't needed," he said uncertainly, and tried to ignore the burning line of pain across his back as she knelt by his side. "Is it needed?"

She glanced at it again and paled. "Yes, yes it's needed."

The spy didn't like blood, who would have thought it? But that pleased him; it further confirmed that Marsac and his hissing accusation of _murderer _was wrong.

He had half a mind to challenge Marsac upon his return to Paris.

She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Okay, shirt off."

"Will you be able to concentrate?" he asked with a wink, and succeeded in making her laugh in surprise. He didn't want her to be uncomfortable, but he knew he needed the stitches. He drew off his shirt, choking back his cry when his shoulders screamed in pain.

There was definitely a moment where Amelie's gaze had to dart back to meet his, and when he raised his eyebrows in pleased amusement, she giggled sheepishly and inclined her head at the floor, "Down boy."

His chuckle made her blush further and he made a small note to tease her after a glass of wine in the future.

He caught sight of the bottle of wine and amended, perhaps a few glasses.

He settled on the blanket, leaning his chin on his crossed arms and shuddered when her light hands fluttered up his back.

"Sorry," she murmured, thinking that it had hurt, but in reality it was an effort not to roll over and just-

A tiny point of pain pierced his back and he jerked, muttering, "Some warning would have been nice, Amelie."

All he received in return were whispered prayers almost against his skin. He tried to listen to them over the rhythmic push and pull of the needle and realised with a gasped laugh that they weren't prayers for his safety, but to make it easier on her.

"It's just like leather, it's just like leather," she chanted quietly as if it were her mantra, and he had to stop himself from laughing.

His withheld trembles made her anxiety slowly turn to anger. "Why are you shaking? Does it hurt? Wait, are you _laughing_? What is wrong with you?!"

She was getting hysterical and that just made it even funnier, except then she plunged the needle back in and he stiffened with a cry.

"That's what happens when you fidget, and evidently your precision doesn't apply to _being_ stitched."

"Your bedside manner is terrible," he said through gritted teeth, even though he still wanted to laugh at her grumpiness.

"Were I not concentrating furiously, I'd make a joke about bed_side _manners, but…" she trailed off and he tried to turn his head, but she swatted him gently. "Still, or I'll pierce your ear."

"I think I'd look quite dashing with a gold hoop, like a pirate."

"Aramis," she chided distractedly, "You're far too pretty for the sea."

"Thank you," he said delightedly, and grinned against his arms when he heard her laugh.

Amelie's hands were soft but determined, just like her.

His wound stung something fierce and it made the night seem like it had already taken too long, and yet the thought of the morning made him wish the moon would stop in its tracks.

Just as he wished that Amelie would stop in her tracks, and stay with him always.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I adore writing this, but it's taking it out of me. I have one more chapter and then I think _L'appel_ is going to take a little holiday, I'm afraid. I am so very open to follows and reviews changing my mind though; every time I see a new one it inspires me to write a few more paragraphs - just think, write enough and I'll write forever!...

Can you tell that there's a theme with the titles? It's a new task to myself, to name the chapters within a "visit" similarly. There's one more to, ah, finish this section off, what could it be~?

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	10. The Knot

**Author's Note:**

Aramis tries to tempt the tide from its natural rhythm, and Amelie finds that this particular soldier can take a lot in his charming stride.

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN**

**The Knot**

"Come lay with me," Aramis murmured from across the fire. He was still sprawled on the grass, and his shirt was still off, so she threw him an arch look. Resolutely _not _marvelling at how firelight did wonders with the natural tan of his skin.

"You can barely move."

"Nonsense, you stitched me so prettily," he coaxed, voice low and inviting.

Her lip twitched, but she kept it in check. "Nice try. If you tear one, I'll stitch your lip."

"My lip?" he asked distractedly, dazed eyes focusing on the curve of her hip through her dress as she walked back to him. He was burning through her wine and she was too concerned about the pain he might be in not to give him more.

It also blended perfectly with the honey of his tongue.

"Yes," she crooned, leaning down to cup his chin with one hand and running her thumb gently along his bite-beckoning lip, "Because I will slap you."

His laugh was one of surprise, and then his arm snaked out to grab her but she was already moving away, hissing when her hip twinged at the sudden movement.

"Amelie," he chided, and valiantly withstood her look of outrage. "Come here."

"Do not think yourself fortunate, monsieur," she said, but went willingly into the circle of his arms and sat on the floor by his side. It felt far too comfortable, far too _right _to be there with him. But no one, except they, would know about it; so she indulged.

His smile was too staggering to do anything other than lean forward and kiss him, even as he murmured, "I am the luckiest man alive."

She couldn't quite hold the amusement out of her raised brow. "If compliments were livre, you would be a rich man."

"I am rich in other ways," he said against her cheek, the soft scratchiness of his beard drawing a soft sigh from her.

It was as if he was _designed _with charm in mind.

Perhaps this was the world's way of trying to tell her that females shouldn't roam, because Aramis evoked desires that she had thought were beyond her. She was not a normal woman, but she felt like one when Aramis held her tight and seemed to shield her from the shadows.

But she knew the complexities of darkness, and the simplicity of _hearth and home _felt a lot like having her wings clipped.

Even now, with Aramis' lips against her cheek, she felt the urge to adventure, to travel, to _roam._

She would not be the one hovering by the hearth as he came home from a mission, casting nervous looks out of the window and wondering what sort of herbs she would have to add to the dinner.

"I am not a simple woman, Aramis," she murmured, and he stilled to listen attentively. "I won't be waiting for you when you come home. I'll stumble into your camp, kick dirt into your fire, and shout at you whilst you stitch whatever new injuries I have."

He continued kissing her cheek. "You shouldn't promise such pretty things."

She couldn't restrain her surprised laughter even as a fresh burst of warmth exploded in her chest. "You are not responding at all how I expected, today."

"Perhaps I am not a simple man," he said with a smooth shrug of his toned shoulders. "What is life, if not an adventure?"

She turned to look at him, still wary of that burgeoning hope that was making her heart stagger, just as his smile did.

But she forced herself to be honest, to them both. "Even though our adventures may take us in different directions, different angles, sometimes?"

Perhaps she had been a spy for too long, she was too careful with her heart. She knew what she loved in life and she could count them on one hand, and when she loved, she loved utterly.

She wasn't sure she could take Aramis' offered heart, the one that he had offered to so many others, because she wouldn't just cherish it, she would carve her initials on it and never let it go.

She could fall into his arms all too easily, but she would not let herself love him.

That was a path that she could never cross, a lit path that spies eyed from a distance and turned tail to head for the familiar shadows. For sometimes spies had to do things that struck a discordant note, and it was easier to do them in the darkness where they could be forgotten afterwards.

Those things would not be easily forgiven if this were anything more than… _diversion._

He shifted an arm to cup her jaw and his brown eyes blazed with an affection that she wasn't sure that she deserved. "Even the sun and the moon cross paths occasionally."

Her hum of approval was amused. "Yes, and the moon wanes."

"But then it waxes."

His determination was catching, just as he caught her lips in a kiss so soft that it made her toes curl. She rose up a little on her knees, one hand resting against Aramis' chest as the other slid to her side.

The pain on her hip was bad, but it was nothing that she hadn't dealt with before. Aramis' stitches were so neat that it was almost addictive to keep running her fingers over the smooth even bumps, evidence of his concentration.

She realised a little distastefully that she was still going to have a scar there, right on the curve of her hip.

She wasn't a vain creature, but it was exactly where Aramis liked to rest his-

Aramis' hand fell gently onto it, as if he _knew _that she was concerned, and then he tilted her chin up and kissed her softly, murmuring, "_Ravissante._"

She laughed a little self-consciously. "What, with my dress in tatters and covered in blood?"

"Yes," he said with a seductive tilt to his lip, "Wild and untamed, like the tide."

She brightened under his touch, under the soft words of encouragement, as he had planned. Aramis was a quick study, but she found that it was all too easy to let him coax her, like a filly that planned to bolt.

Perhaps she could indulge, just a little bit, just whilst she was home. Did all Musketeers not do the same? Their love was for France, but they danced a while too, with pretty maids that roamed the night. What would be the harm in simply tasting the fruit that was offered with such a charming smile?

If she was to fall off the knife, she wouldn't leave it up to chance. She would wield the knife with one hand and hide her heart in the other.

She didn't fall, she jumped.

And Aramis was there to catch her.

* * *

If victory were a song, he would be singing.

It had taken some well-placed kisses and the right string of words, but Amelie had finally relented. His fingers clenched almost reflexively on her hip and she hissed into his mouth.

He pulled back immediately, crooning guiltily, "_Pardonnez-moi, ma marée. _I forgot."

She arched an eyebrow, amusement twinkling in her eyes. "I believe we are both injured soldiers, tonight."

"The pain is negligible, _je t'assure._"

She leaned towards him again, but when he tried to kiss her, she ran a light palm over his back and he flinched from the pain. "Liar," she whispered fondly.

"Do not make me pout, Amelie," he warned, "For I will."

"I do not doubt it, you're better at getting your own way than I am."

He gave her his most winning smile and succeeded in settling her against him again, his back forgotten.

She had not forgotten it though.

"You, monsieur, need sleep, and tomorrow you will return to Paris."

He pouted. She scowled.

"Only if you stay the night," he bargained, sensing that he was fighting a losing battle for once.

She hesitated, he saw it in the way she glanced at the sky and her scattered saddlebags. "I don't like saying goodbye," she muttered to the floor, and her reluctance enchanted him.

He tilted her chin up for a gentle kiss. "You can do your disappearing act tomorrow."

"And you _will _return to Paris, without me?" she asked uncertainly.

"If you wish it," he murmured, pleased when she smiled. "And I will wait for you."

She stiffened, unbearably, so he tried to tug her closer again, hoping to convince her that this was meant to be, with his hands if not his words.

She exposed her neck almost instinctively, and satisfaction scored him, but then she groaned and turned away. "You don't understand, Aramis. There's nothing to wait for."

He stilled, tension a heavy weight in his chest just as she was a light one against it. "Isn't there?"

Her sigh was so heartbroken that it hurt him. "I go to Spain for a month."

A _month? _A month was too long, one night not long enough.

"Why?"

"Because it's my duty," she said forcefully, as if trying to tell herself it. She looked up at him then, tender melancholy in her blue eyes. "Win spars, read books, have _fun; _don't wait."

"What if I want to?"

"You will be bored, _mon cher_," she said sadly, as if it was a truth that he was just too blind to see.

He thought about the last week, how he had thrown himself into sparring with the absence of missions, the absence of _her_.

He forced himself to think about how often he had found his feet taking him to Madame Dupris', his mind awash with unsatisfied desire, a painful craving for blonde curls and mismatched blue eyes.

It was only her sudden reappearance that had distracted him, and he knew that the temptation would be unsurmountable without her presence.

"Aramis," the order made him freeze. Her expression had changed to one of bitter authority, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. "I'm leaving for a month, when I return, it'll be for what, a week, two? And then I'm away again, who knows for how long?"

She took a deep breath and added quietly, "I won't ask anything of you that I couldn't ask of myself, not whilst France needs me."

A stray wind could have toppled him.

_Don't wait._

_Have fun._

She was _condoning _diversion?

He wasn't sure whether he felt shocked or relieved. Inside, he had known that she would leave again, because if she didn't consider her work so important, she wouldn't have the loyalty that he loved so much.

It was frustrating because she was _right, _as Marsac had been right. How often had they spoken of his romantic's heart, of his desire for attention?

Amelie had given him a reprieve, not a slight; she would not make him promise to do something that he wasn't sure he could.

That did not mean that he adored her any less, if anything, he adored her more.

She was not turning him away, merely offering a compromise, one of soldiers and spies, the sun and the moon.

"I.. will not wait," he said finally, and searched her face for anything to give him cause to doubt himself. There was nothing, only a fond encouragement. "But I will expect you."

"That is all I can ask," she replied quietly, and rewarded him with a kiss.

Perhaps she already knew him better than he knew himself, for she knew that he would have trouble waiting, and so rather than returning in a month and hating him for failing, she allowed it in advance.

"We do not live normal lives," he reasoned, and it made her lip twitch into a smile, one that immediately steadied him.

"No," she agreed, "But we live them fully."

He considered her, still flush against his side, her delicate palm over his chest. To live fully would have Amelie be there always, but he would not cage her when she wanted to fly free.

She would return, after all, like the tide.

He attempted to unbalance her and tug her onto his lap, but she was too quick and his injuries too painful. Instead, he lowered himself to the floor and she went with him, resting her cheek against his shoulder.

It was all he could do to not demand she stay there forever.

"Why don't you like to sit still for long?" he asked, determined to know as much as he could before she disappeared again.

She rolled onto her front, one leg hooked over his and her chin resting on his chest. It was an unconscious movement, but it sang of trust and the desire to be close.

It soothed something anxious inside of him.

"Not sitting still is what kept me from the grave the night Treville found me," she said easily, and smiled soothingly when he pulled her a little closer. "I like to be on the move, I cannot be doing with the pomp of court."

No, he supposed that she wouldn't, for all she looked as if she would fit in there.

"Wait," he said suddenly, and knew he was onto something when she flashed him a guilty glance. "You aren't _noblesse?_"

"It wasn't hereditary," she replied quickly, and a little defensively, "I should not have assumed it."

There was only one title that did not usually pass from parent to child.

"Your parents were vicomtes," he clarified numbly, and she gave one jerk of a nod. "You said you 'should not' have assumed it?"

She sighed heavily, as if wanting to deny him knowledge but couldn't bring herself to do so.

He liked that she couldn't, that she didn't lie to him.

He didn't like the threat of nobility. The Captain of the Musketeers was bad enough, now she had a title, too?

"The debate over my heritage meant that I spent a lot of time in court, the title was given to me in good grace." She nibbled her lip and looked away, saying almost too quietly to hear, "Of course, vicomtes don't have as much sway over the other nobles."

He almost bolted upright in shock but she refused to move from her perch, weighing him down as if worried he would scarper. "You're a _comtesse?_!"

"In name only!" she cried hotly, as if the title embarrassed her. "It is useful when my work requires silks and sandwiches rather than swords and shadows."

"But you _do_ hold the title?" he asked in amazement.

"King Louis looks after his Musketeers," she mumbled, "It was Treville's idea."

Of course it was, Treville was looking out for his spy as well as his daughter

She was staring at him uncertainly, unsure how he would react, and it hurt him. He should forever expect surprises from her, he realised, she was surrounded by them. "Do I have to call you 'my lady', now?" he teased, and she flopped against him noisily.

"Please," she grumbled, "My holdings are tiny; it's like being the king of a puddle."

He settled a little, but only slightly. He knew that she was of good birth, but not _this _good.

His spy had more than just her charms and quick wits about her, it seemed. Perhaps it should not have made her more interesting to him, should not have made it more exciting to lift her chin and press a kiss against her lips and murmur, "_Bon, _for you are _ma marée_."

She hummed happily into his kiss and teased, "That's Comtesse _Marée_ to you."

With a laugh, he rolled her underneath him, ignoring the whip of pain across his back and the concerned chide she gave. Discomfort was nothing when Amelie lay pliant on the forest floor – perhaps he should get injured more often.

As if sensing his thought, she wriggled, so he bit her lip and enjoyed her immediate stilling. The blue of her eyes flared darker, and he fought a noise that would give away his plan.

She saw through him anyway.

"_Non, _monsieur," she said gently, but accompanied it with a smile when he would have immediately pulled away. "Tonight is for healing."

"But a whole month?" he asked pitifully, trying to convey how truly heartless she was being for leaving him in the cold.

She arched an eyebrow, looking the haughty Comtesse she could have been. "You cannot miss what you haven't had, hm?"

"Those are nobles' words," he muttered, catching her mouth for another kiss. "Tricky words."

"Tricky because they're true."

"No," he countered, and waited until she tried to deepen the kiss before pulling away slightly and continuing, "I will miss you regardless. Miss, and expect, and want."

She shuddered, a fine shiver that he felt through his own overheated body. Her pulse was a quickened thing in her neck, but she was made of stronger stuff than he.

"Goodnight, Aramis."

She snickered when he huffed noisily and gently rolled away. After she had checked the fire and fed the horses, she returned to his side, followed the tug of his arms until she rested against his chest.

It felt _right, _but so did riding with her the next morning, so did her disappearance somewhere between one tree and the next, so did the rueful laughter that bubbled in his stomach.

So did the sore mark on his lip from where she had bit him for suggesting going with her.

Returning to Paris felt right, too, in its own way, but not without her by his side. Still, he had promised, and Amelie had his loyalty, in his own way.

They did not live normal lives, but they lived them fully, that was their compromise.

The first time he re-visited that house with the silk curtains and soft sighs, he had been drunk. He hadn't been drunk the second time, but the guilt was almost dizzying.

After that? The counting stopped, and so did the guilt.

_Don't wait, _she had said, but he expected her return.

_Don't wait._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I felt like I heard _Aramis! _cried in outraged tones - I know, I know, but that's his way. Commiserate with Amelie and I in the reviews, please.

If you're looking for something else to read: my OC/Avengers fic '_Chaotic Howling_' is still getting updated, and ComeHitherAshes has some Musketeers excitement in the form of Portamis and OT3 - Go check 'em out, you lovely things!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	11. The Stars

**Author's Note:**

"Stars,  
in your multitudes,  
scarce to be counted,  
filling the darkness,  
with order and light.  
Silent and sure.  
You are the sentinels."

\- Javert, '_Stars, Les Mis_é_rables_'

* * *

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

**The Stars**

Aramis was half out of the door before his fingers found his forehead and he realised that something was missing.

He turned and met lips that tasted of nothing, his hands reaching for the hat thrust upon his head and not slender hips marked with his stitches, the scent in his nose of silks and perfumes not brisk wind and gunpowder.

Anniette gave him a saucy wink as he grinned at her and retreated to the streets of Paris. "Until next time, _monsieur._"

"_Aurevoir, ma cherie,_" he called easily over his shoulder and strolled towards the garrison, his mind aglow with something completely unrelated to work. He ran a hand through his tousled hair and made quick work of straightening his askew cloak, evidence of a night well had not exactly what he wanted to portray to Treville.

"Wake up, idiot," Marsac shouted as he passed under the arch, just stopping him from walking straight in between two of his brothers sparring.

"Apologies," he offered to the roll of their eyes, and one of them leaned forward to tug at his jacket, exposing a fresh scratch mark across his collar bone. "Busy evening."

They chuckled, knowing full well what that meant, and when Aramis finally turned to Marsac, it was to see a smug sort of grin on his friend's face. "_Bonjour, mon ami. _What's put you in such a fair mood?"

"You, you don't pout when you've had a good night."

Aramis frowned as he smiled. "I haven't pouted in a while."

"Exactly, makes my life a lot easier when you're distracted," Marsac drawled.

He frowned properly then, the smile disappearing under memories sweet as they were melancholic. "I require distraction; I can't look at my own cape without thinking of Amelie."

Marsac's good humour dropped into a scowl. "_Mon Dieu_, you couldn't let me go a day without hearing her name, could you?"

He bristled, twitching his cape aside to palm his rapier. "Don't make me challenge you again, _mon ami_."

Marsac held his hands up begrudgingly. "Just because you can beat me doesn't make you right."

"That's how sparring works," he replied triumphantly, settling down onto the bench Marsac was sprawled across.

"It's been almost a month, haven't you given up yet?" Marsac asked with a truly belligerent grimace. It was the same thing every day, he would bring up Amelie – or even sigh wistfully – and Marsac would start spouting venom that he could only tolerate for so long.

If only Marsac would tolerate the fixation of his heart.

"I refuse to give up on love," he announced, intending to make his friend smile, but Marsac merely glowered at him. "I don't see why it's so distasteful to you-"

"Distasteful?" Marsac exclaimed in angry surprise. "She's a _spy!_"

"Keep your voice down," he hissed, but Marsac simply shook his head in exasperation, looking for all of the world as if he didn't care whether Amelie's secret got out. He knew that wasn't true though, Marsac might be a grumpy bastard, but he was loyal to the Musketeers.

Aramis would bet his life on that.

Marsac got up from his sprawl. "You're an idiot, and I'll prove it to you."

Aramis laughed, guessing where this was leading. "I've already proven that I can beat you, you admitted it yourself." Marsac ignored him and headed out of the garrison. "Where are you going?"

No reply, and Aramis was left frowning at his friend's back as he disappeared under the arch. He shrugged, Marsac would be back soon enough, and with whatever hare-brained scheme he had come up with.

Marsac didn't understand, his heart could no more be stopped than the moon's path in the sky.

He wasn't waiting, but he was still expecting, expecting his life to brighten again with the taste of anise and adventure.

He idly sparred for a while, picking friendly fights to keep him occupied. It was only when he could have sworn he saw Marsac talking to some shady figure and handing over – what certainly looked like – a heavy bag of coins that he stopped.

Unfortunately, his opponent had not, and Aramis hissed when he caught the tip of a rapier against his jaw, just framing his beard.

"_Bastardo_," he swore through a pained laugh as he placed a finger against the shallow cut, "I didn't need a shave."

"_Je suis desolé, _Aramis. What caught your attention?"

He looked back to where he thought he had seen Marsac, but the space was empty, and instead he saw his friend strolling into the garrison as if he was cock of the walk.

"Nothing," he murmured, and bestowed a smile on his concerned opponent. "A lucky strike."

"Aren't they all?"

He laughed and waved off a rematch, vowing to claim recompense the next time he was free. Instead, he intercepted Marsac's arrogant stride with a raised eyebrow. "Well?"

"We have a task," Marsac commented distractedly, his eyes scouring a piece of parchment in his hand.

"I thought we were on palace duty tomorrow?"

"Hm?" Marsac finally looked up and frowned. "No, Treville wants us on this instead, we're headed to Lyon."

He laughed in surprise, "Do you jest?"

"No, of course I'm not, that's what it says right here," Marsac insisted, shoving the parchment in his hands. "Lyon, see? We're leaving immediately."

"But that will take at least a few days of heavy riding, I cannot go, Amelie will be back from Spain soon." It had almost been a month; he wasn't going to chance missing her return.

Marsac fixed him with a look that said he very much wanted to punch him, but then he sighed and threw his hands in the air. "Fine, wait, like a little dog, but you can tell Treville that you're declining a mission, I'm still going."

Marsac strode off before Aramis could call him to terms on that slight, but when he caught sight of Treville storming into the garrison and looking as if he could kill someone with simply a look, Aramis decided that he liked his head firmly attached to his neck.

He would ride fast, they could get back in time, he would see to it.

Marsac's smile was triumphant when he walked into the stables to saddle a restless Lance. "You will see your precious spy soon enough, Aramis, duty always comes first."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Aramis growled over Lance's flank, his horse leaning forward in an attempt to bite Marsac as he mounted up on his bad-tempered steed.

Did everyone he know have something against his friend?

He tugged Lance's head back and a got an exasperated huff for his troubles and a glare from Marsac.

"Stop wasting time," Marsac called as he high-stepped outside, "Our quarry won't stay still for long."

He sighed heartily as he shared an apple with Lance, sparing a glance at the locked chest that had started to gather a layer of hay and dust. It unsettled him to see it so disused, but he knew from Lance's fidgets that Hestia wasn't back in her stall either.

"What a pair we make, eh, _mon grand malabar_?"

Lance whickered and tugged him out into the sunshine, eager to get on the road, and Aramis couldn't blame him. He used work as a distraction, too.

He stepped into the saddle and, with one last look at that empty stall, hoped he would be back in time for his tide's return.

He was expecting her, after all.

* * *

Amelie stifled a yawn and tried to listen attentively to the Italian braggart who wouldn't let go of her fingers. He flourished them as he gestured, as if she were some sort of prize to be worn on his hand.

His own fingers were lily-soft, bereft of the fencer's callouses on Aramis' or even the faint pistol ones on her own. There was no story to be told in this man's skin, no wounds to sew or scars to trace with her fingers.

Was she counting the days?

Yes.

"You would not know, _mia cara_, but there are stars in the sky that are named after me," he said in a self-aggrandising way. He probably would have been quite attractive if it wasn't for the enormous propensity of his ego and the way he seemed to expect those stars to revolve around him, instead of Jupiter.

She responded as she was expected to, a delighted gasp and a confused tilt of the head. "Is that so? How wonderful, what are these stars?"

The Grand Duke smiled, pleased that she was apparently impressed, and motioned at the slowly setting sun. "My tutor, Galileo, he has discovered that the planet Jupiter has moons."

"Fascinating," she exclaimed excitedly, and managed to draw her fingers out of his clammy grip to summon another hefty glass of wine.

Anything to get her through this banal torture.

He had already offered her a place in his court, no doubt betwixt his numerous children and her with a foot in French politics. It had been difficult to feign interest in _that_, even pretending to consider it had torn at her fleur-de-lis emblazoned heart.

He claimed her fingers again before she could snatch them away. "You could come with me to Tuscany and see them."

She genuinely hesitated then, for that really was an intriguing offer. Long had she stared at the stars and read of their discoveries, but never had she been able to see them as others did, as this Galileo evidently did.

The Duke laughed, "Ah, I cannot convince you, but my stars can?"

She called a blush to her cheeks. "They interest me greatly, _monsieur._"

"And how pleasing that is, to see such a desire of knowledge in a beautiful woman such as yourself."

Amelie focused on not wrinkling her nose and instead tugged her hand away to wave it at him as if she were embarrassed. Could she have gotten away with honesty? Perhaps, he seemed the type to find her amusing, for all he spent his days enlarging his navy.

She wouldn't risk it though, couldn't, for she was here with one mission in mind.

Keep Cosimo de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, alive and busy through Savoy.

The _why _she could work out for herself, the Medici were not to be messed with at the best of times, and Savoy was enough of a political plum right now that everyone wanted to pluck. They had to pass through to reach Italy, but it was her job to keep him on track.

When she had signed up for this life, she hadn't thought it would entail babysitting men to keep them from forging advantageous alliances.

Cosimo, however, was apparently keen on taking his time getting back, and it was getting more and more boring every single day. He had already decided to return to Tuscany instead of Spain, adding a week to their travel as they rerouted.

At this rate, they wouldn't reach Tuscany for another fortnight, and she was getting tired of barricading her door each night from unwanted advances.

Cosimo was a good sort, but she couldn't say the same for his men, and there were at least two eyeing her up even as she made nice with their superior. She stifled a yawn of genuine tiredness and promised herself sleep when she was back in Paris.

Well, if Aramis would let her, and the thought made a small smile curve her lips.

Still, she liked being in Lyon, and its counting houses kept Cosimo busy.

"_Vostra Altezza_?" One of Cosimo's guards called from the inn's doorway.

Before the guard could finish what he had to say, someone pushed past him brusquely, almost sending the guard flying. The rest of Cosimo's court looked up in surprise, and it was a pretty surprising incident.

It was obvious that Italian nobility had commandeered the inn, the crests flanked every carriage, only an idiot…

"_Bonjour, meurtriere_."

Of course, it had to be _that _idiot.

Marsac had fixated on her like a hound did on a game hen, and it was only when Cosimo's fingers caught hers that everything settled into a stunning clarity.

She was not Amelie, the Musketeers' spy, here. She was a pretty escort, her place was in the Medici convoy until she could escape back into France.

For once, she quite enjoyed standing up in startled affront and pressing close to Cosimo's side, acting the distressed damsel.

If it got Marsac thrown out on his rump, she would even pretend to cry.

"Who is this man?" she called in quavering tones, and smothered a smile when a guard grabbed the back of Marsac's collar and dragged him stumbling backwards.

She saw the moment Marsac realised he wouldn't be able to stamp his way through this, but it didn't seem to cow him, instead his glare grew more intense, as did something that looked worryingly like a smile.

It stayed even as he was thrust from the room, two guards frog-marching him outside. Cosimo ordered something in Italian and she only caught the tail end of it as his court settled down.

_-bring him back._

She turned aggrieved eyes on him but he simply smiled soothingly as he squeezed her fingers. "There, there, _mia cara_, I will sort this."

"You already have," she simpered, fluttering a hand over her chest as if she was nervous – which she was. If he brought Marsac back, the idiot might give her away, or worse, get himself stabbed. "You don't need-"

Movement at the door caught her attention and then her hand froze just as her heartbeat did. Shoved through the door, with no sense of decorum, was a viciously smiling Marsac.

And a confused Aramis.

She almost cried out at the sight of him, the blackness of her soul reaching out for the bright burn of his fire, but something insurmountable held her back and told her that this was an incredibly important mission. It lay on a knife's edge that she was not allowed to jump from.

It was duty, and she hated it.

She hated it when Marsac sneered at her, she hated it when she couldn't reach out for Aramis, and she despised it when Aramis lit up at the sight of her, and his joy died a death when he saw her effectively plastered against a strange man's side.

Her façade faltered and she let a concerned frown show, nothing ever shaking her like Aramis did, but his gaze was locked on Cosimo's fingers around hers.

Her brain raced and she noticed a little dazedly that they weren't wearing Musketeer gear, their cloaks and shoulder-guards absent – it made them strangers, they had to be.

And when Aramis looked at her, it was as if they were.

Light brown eyes were dark with difficult questions, his gaze constantly flicking between her and the arrogant man at her side. Marsac looked between them, seemingly waiting for something to happen, some sort of _something_, but all they did was stare.

"She's a fucking sp-" Marsac was cut off by a guard's knee in his stomach, and although Amelie felt a little glimmer of satisfaction at that, she played her role and gasped in shock.

Cosimo looked down his nose at Marsac. "Such language does not befit the present company, _mascalzone_, I think you should step away." In one smooth motion, he drew his rapier with one hand, and his other landed proprietarily on her hip.

It felt like a brand.

Something like agonised surprise blared across Aramis' face when she did her duty and leaned against Cosimo's chest.

He thought she was sleeping with Cosimo, and it looked like she was mocking him.

When Aramis' eyelids flickered, she remembered belatedly that she had said she was going to Spain, and now she looked like a liar, too.

For once, Aramis' confidence left him, his mouth parted in a noiseless cry and she couldn't _do_ anything about it. Ugly triumph was a smirk across Marsac's face as he whispered, "Traitorous scum."

Cosimo inhaled sharply and then his sword point rested against Marsac's chest. "You disgrace yourself, _messere_."

"Don't touch me," Marsac sneered, "Take your whore and walk away."

It felt like a slap, but what truly stung was how Aramis simply stared at her and didn't say anything, he didn't come to her defence or hold his friend back.

She had no idea why they were here, but it felt like Marsac was winning.

Cosimo raised his fingers and suddenly six swords were added to his. She could have sworn there were only three of his allies in the room, but the Medici were sneaky. That was why she was there.

That was why Aramis should not have been, he was too good for the underhandedness of espionage.

Too good, too _bright_ for her.

"_Mia cara_," Cosimo began and Aramis twitched as if pained.

Cosimo lowered his weapon now that his back up had finally been revealed, back up that she hadn't noticed and would easily turn on her if her disguise was routed. Her task was clear; she knew what her mission was.

Coldness settled in her stomach at the realisation of what had to happen next.

She had to lie.

"Do you know these men?"

She couldn't break Aramis' gaze, even though Cosimo's hand on her hip had begun to rub tiny circles against her dress, even though Aramis glanced away to watch the movement and looked back at her as if she had snatched one of her hidden knives and stabbed him through the heart.

"No," she whispered.

The knife twisted and desolation roared from brown eyes that suddenly closed off to her.

Cosimo tugged her closer and she had to submit to it, even though her skin crawled and her chest hurt and all she wanted was to scream the truth.

But duty was important.

"Deal with them outside."

Aramis' eyelids stuttered shut and he looked beseechingly at the ceiling as if asking for help.

"Wait," she started, the word surprised out of her, the dutiful part of her twisting in agony as she risked everything. Cosimo halted in his dismissive wave and she had to drag her eyes to him and think of something to say. "Not in France, _monsieur_, please, wait until tomorrow."

Cosimo looked at her anew, as if he had remembered she was an ambassador of France and not just an offended woman. "_Mia cara_, I will not house them in the interim just to keep French blood spilling on its soil."

Marsac's glare was akin to needles and it was all she could do not to slap him across the face.

"Then do not, leave them hungry, but please, as a favour," she trailed off and hated herself. She forced herself to look up from under her eyelashes and didn't feel a lick of the heat in her words. "A favour to me."

Marsac swore outrageously and one of the Medici men backhanded him with the flat of his sword. It made a small kindling of happiness flare in the depths of her wretchedness.

Cosimo's smile was surprised but pleased and he offered a small bow. "As you wish, _mia cara_." He turned to his men and ignored the straining one forced to his knees and the damningly silent one that stared at the floor. "Stable them with the horses, but feed the beasts. We ride… tomorrow."

Lewd insinuation lay thick in that word and she silently echoed Marsac's renewed bout of cursing. The blasted idiot had gotten her into this mess, had pulled dank darkness over her and over Aramis, even over France if this soured relations, but at the end of the day, he was a Musketeer.

And she was dutiful to a fault.

Aramis didn't look at her as he was dragged from the room, and her loyal heart trembled.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Yeah, so, I got a bit inspired by the lovely SirLancelotTheBrave and ended up drafting this and two other chapters. Hurrah! So, y'know, if you _really _want more, you should totally leave me a review, because not only will I love you forever, but it will inspire me to write! I'd hate to leave you on a cliffhanger...

Historical accuracy: OUT OF THE WINDOW. If the Beeb can do it, so can I. If Amadeus was Duke of Savoy whilst his son, Louis, was alive? I can throw a Medici into the mix, and some Italian lingo, woohoo!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


	12. The Sun

**Author's Note:**

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,  
That's newly sprung in June;  
O my Luve's like a melodie,  
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

\- Robert Burns, '_A Red, Red Rose_'

* * *

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

**The Sun**

The muck-filled barn offended his sensibilities, but he was too numb to truly care.

Aramis stared into soulful brown eyes and barely noticed the ropes digging into his wrists. His skin was raw but unbroken, he couldn't muster the energy to try and escape like Marsac did, his friend's wrists were already coated with blood and sores.

The dun-coloured horse broke his gaze and returned to his hay, forgetting him as easily as Amelie apparently did.

Agony roared inside of him and he hung his head.

So often had he ignored Marsac's whispers, the hateful tales he had spun of what Amelie did when she was away from him. He didn't want to believe, or at least, he didn't want to think about it.

_I won't ask of you what I couldn't ask of myself._

There was a hole where his insides had once been, a gaping void that threatened to suck him in. The abyss looked tempting from his muck-covered surroundings.

Aramis had taken lovers in her absence, like an addict trying to recapture that first glorious high. None of them had been like her, never as glorious, never as high, never her.

They hadn't been his tide.

Amelie was a spy, one committed to duty so valiantly that she had essentially told him that she would go to any lengths for her information, and he had been able to tolerate that dedication to duty.

But to _see _it, with his own two eyes, and for her to denounce him in the arms of an Italian who held their lives in his hands, it killed him.

He had known, somewhere, that this was what she did, but all she had ever shown him was the delivery side of things. Whether it had been in leathers or a dress, she had simply been a courier, even if it was in the dead of night.

This.. this was different; different even to the spitfire he had seen wielding his pistol and her own, ready to defend him.

She was a small shadow, and yet she had felled him far more viciously than any raging brute could; her slender fingers squeezing the heart that she had tried not to take, but he had given her it anyway.

"I told you she was corrupt," Marsac spat viciously, and it made his agony roar again, his voice coming in a snarl.

"Be _quiet, _Marsac, for once in your life be quiet."

Marsac's face turned to one of surprise. Never had he spoken that way, to anyone, but Marsac's words were just lemon on his wounds, acid in his blood, and he wanted to grieve for something he hadn't known he had lost until this moment.

She had never felt the same way about him as he did about her. When he had spent his days thinking of the way the sun lit her hair or the soft noises she made, she was flirting with foreign men.

Although was he any better? He couldn't really judge her for that, not when he did the same.

_I won't ask of you what I couldn't ask of myself._

But to shove it in his face was unbearable, unthinkable, _disloyal._

"I am a fool," he said miserably.

"I know," Marsac replied bitterly. "How long do we have?"

A glance out of the window told him that the sun had almost set, orange light glowed across his face in a soothing sensation that he couldn't feel. When night fell, so would he, and he wouldn't be rising this time. "It isn't even night yet."

"Do you think they'll feed us?" Marsac's hopelessly sarcastic tone rang around the stalls and the brown-eyed horse swatted him with his tail and neighed loudly, stamping the wall in annoyance.

The door slammed open and one of the Italians stalked in with a grimace on his face. "You are causing too much noise."

Marsac mouthed off in reply and swore when a fist connected with his jaw. "Get it over with, scum."

"_Non_, the lady insisted you be spared until you reach Italian soil."

"She's a whore," Marsac snarled and Aramis flinched without meaning to, "She's a spy for France."

Aramis had never wanted to punch Marsac more than that moment.

He was willingly giving away secrets, secrets that would put Amelie's neck on the line when she was putting it there for France, as she always did.

Marsac's honour was a fleeting thing, but at least it was to him.

The Italian raised an eyebrow and then laughed derisively, completely dismissing Marsac's claim. Aramis could breathe easy again for a moment until the Italian spoke again.

"You are a bruised ego, _non_? Perhaps you wanted her, but she is too good for you. We will treat her right, your country might not be good for much, but its beauties are, ah, worth conquering. Perhaps I will try my luck, too."

He saw red, a streak of furious possessiveness that he hadn't known existed surging through his muscles. He lunged against his restraints for the first time, his wrists burning in retaliation. "Touch her and die, _scélérat_."

Marsac spat out some blood and sang viciously, "Fool, Aramis, you are a fucking fool."

"_Tais toi, imbécile_," he called exasperatedly. "_Ne pas utiliser nos noms._"

He hoped that the Italian wouldn't understand him, that Marsac would stop giving away information at the drop of a hat. If he was to die here today, at least Amelie would escape with her life, and his pained heart.

The Italian's smirk was dangerous, clearly telling him that he was screwed. "Arami-"

It was cut off with a sharp inhalation and the Italian's face twisted into one of pained surprise. They both stopped their snarling to look at him in confusion. Had they offended his honour or something equally ridiculous?

A sickening crunch later, the Italian's eyes rolled and he fell forward into the muck, revealing Amelie's delicate nose wrinkled into a frown. She spun her knife in her hand, flipping the hilt back into her palm. "Do you have no sense of self-preservation?"

He hated himself when his heart lifted at the sight of her.

Marsac's veins stood out against his neck and his mouth opened to yell, but then Amelie stepped towards him and placed her bloody blade under his chin. Marsac immediately stilled, but his jaw ground to the side in overwhelming anger.

"Silence," she whispered forcefully, threat almost a growl in her normally light voice. "If I hear one more shout from you I will slice you from palm to palm, do you understand me?"

"What do you want, bitch?"

Her luscious upper lip lifted in a snarl and she rested the knife tip against Marsac's left wrist in a physical representation of her threat, as if she really was planning to mutilate him. It made something sick solidify in his stomach; she was truly as cold as Marsac had said.

He didn't want to believe it, wanted only to believe that she killed in self-defence or for France. He wasn't sure what to make of the deadly shadows that crossed her face, or the glint of the knife in her competent hand.

She leaned closer to Marsac who jerked his chin up to try and get away from her. "I want you to disappear back to Paris where you will remain unseen for at least two whole weeks and if I hear you've even _breathed _in public – well, I'll leave it to your twisted imagination."

Her hand moved and then the bloodied rope fell away, to both of their absolute shocks. Aramis watched her with a terrified sort of rising hope, but then Marsac's arm whipped forward and grabbed Amelie's fragile neck.

"You slut, do you think you can fool me-"

Amelie twisted and, with a strangled cry from Marsac's throat, nailed his palm to the wall with her knife. "Do _not_ test me, Marsac. I'm only holding back because, for some reason, Aramis likes you."

Marsac didn't roar in pain, so either Amelie had missed the bone, or she had deliberately aimed for the gap in between. He wasn't sure whether to take hope from her restraint, or be sickened by, what appeared to be, intimate knowledge of torture.

_I am not a normal woman, Aramis_, the words whispered through his memory like a damning wave against the ever-burning flaring in his chest.

"I know the feeling." Marsac gasped out, ever ignorant of his own mortality.

Amelie rolled her eyes but left Marsac to his muttering. She drew another knife from her dress and headed for him, hesitancy hidden under her confidence. There was a pressure in his throat and he had no idea what to do or what to say. She wouldn't meet his eye and it made his hope flicker like a fire without kindling.

It meant that she was all that Marsac had said, it meant that she didn't love him.

Of course, she had never given him cause to think otherwise. It had always been he who loved strongest to the blindness of everything else.

He swallowed past a lump in his throat and asked hoarsely, "Why?"

"Which question are you asking?" she replied softly, her hands ever-so gentle as she sliced through his bindings, careful of his wounds.

Marsac seethed through his pain and answered for him, "Why did you come back? You don't care, about anything, you heartless whore."

Amelie tossed her head like a haughty horse and she blazed with righteous anger, her beauty hitting him all over again, and that was before she spoke.

"I am a Musketeer; you blind, ignorant, imbecile," she said wrathfully, her palm resting lightly against his heart for a brief moment before she turned to the writhing, still-pinned Marsac.

She was a vision of pained duty and splendour, and his breath caught at the sight of her.

Amelie shook her head in resigned rage as she jabbed a finger at the door. "Do you know what you have just done? _That _was Cosimo de' Medici, the most important man in Tuscany that doesn't hold a sceptre in one hand."

Marsac didn't react except to scowl, but he inhaled in surprise. "_Sacre bleu,_" the words dropped out as his stomach did, everything clarifying in dire detail.

That was why she had denied them, she was building bridges with Italy under the King's name, and they had almost ruined everything. He could have smacked himself, and with it, that little bit of hope sparked.

If she could forgive him.

"Did he believe Marsac?"

"No, of course not," she replied bitterly, as if mentally bracing herself for the lies she would have to tell the Medici, and he wished he could tell them for her. "It was far too easy to call him a raving lunatic and wax lyrical about his death."

"Ha-de-fucking-ha." Marsac breathed, and then narrowed his hate-filled eyes past Amelie at him. "For God's sake, you've forgiven her, haven't you?"

Amelie almost turned to look at him, but seemed to hold herself back and instead said angrily to Marsac, "I was doing my job, which is more than could be said for _you, _what are you even doing here?"

He ignored Marsac's pure derisive scoff but couldn't withstand the trace of disappointment in her voice. She had just been doing her duty and they had risked her safety, his guilt clamped heavily on his shoulders; he had to explain. "Treville sent us."

Amelie frowned and did turn then, meeting his eye as Marsac raptly watched the floor, as if something on it fascinated him. "What for?"

"Er." He tried to remember but Marsac hadn't told him the reason, he still had the scrawled parchment in his pocket. "I don't know."

Wrath tightened Amelie's features until her cheekbones were tight against her skin, and then she whirled on the still restrained Marsac. "You _bastard_, you weren't sent here at all, were you?"

Shock finally prompted him into moving and he stepped towards them, confusion making him almost reach out for her. "What do you mean?"

He froze when her fingers tightened on the knife still embedded in Marsac's wrist, and she very nearly wiggled it but seemed to hold herself back by force of will alone.

It very slightly eased something sickened inside of him.

"Treville sent _me _here. Marsac knew and brought you with him, he wanted you to see me." Her hand trembled and then she forced it open, turning to face him with something bright glittering in her eyes. "He wanted you to see betrayal."

"And it worked," Marsac spat, vicious victory on his face.

Aramis simply stared at his friend, the man who had gone to such lengths to try and show him something that he had never wanted to see.

"I'm _working," _she cried to the ceiling,"It doesn't _mean _anything, I'm _empty_."

Each word was like a slap, her voice haunting in its anguish, and Marsac focused on it like a hunter that had scented weakness. But Amelie wasn't weak, and it showed in the fire in her eyes when Marsac spat, "Exactly, you're like a banshee, emotionless and you drag _everyone _down with you."

"I just stopped a man who would have killed you, and you're calling me emotionless?"

"You're a cold-blooded killer!"

He couldn't take it anymore. "Marsac, enough."

She turned to him briefly then, and where he expected to see gratitude, he saw something beseeching as she said softly, "He's not dead."

He glanced at the downed man, and almost sagged when he saw the faint rise and fall of his chest. She hadn't killed the Italian, but she could have done.

His breathing wavered, and Marsac's glare was intense. There was a moment of expectant silence, each of them waiting for the other to say something, and then Amelie let out a sigh so heavy that it shook her spine.

"You both need to go," she said resignedly, "I'll need to blame you for this but Cosimo doesn't know who you are."

She pulled her knife out, ignoring Marsac's grunt, and used it to cut his other binding as she reminded, "Two weeks."

Marsac sneered but didn't try to attack her again. "I remember."

He couldn't react to the shove against his shoulder as Marsac walked past and out of the stables; instead he was entirely focused on Amelie's straight spine.

He couldn't help himself from asking, "Are you going back?" _To him?_

"I have to, France…" she trailed off, as if she wasn't sure of the reason herself, anymore.

He took a deep breath and dragged his fingers through his hair, trying to find a point of stability in the turmoil. Amelie stood in the dying sunlight, embers of orange lighting her silhouette until it seemed as if she stood in absolute darkness.

He didn't want her to stand alone, not when she had risked angering a Medici to come and free them. No matter what had happened, no matter what _would_ happen, she held his heart in her blood-stained hand and a dagger in the other.

If she so wished, she could break him, and yet all she used that knife for was for France, and still she disabled instead of killed.

She was a better Musketeer than he could ever be.

"I understand," he said quietly, because he was starting to, he was trying to. He reached for her, needing to ground himself, but she flinched and, although he expected it, hurt rammed through him.

Immediately, she looked as if she wished she had allowed the touch, her eyes closed and she flared her empty hand. Why did he feel as if his fingers belonged in the gaps between hers? But all he had bought her was trouble at every step of the way.

He had doubted her, and she was nothing but dutiful.

The sick, twisted miasma of betrayal and jealousy in his gut was his own, his own failings.

He did not deserve forgiveness, not after the things he had done and then judged her for them.

He took one step to follow Marsac, grief for what might have been was a raging torrent in his chest, and then she called, "Aramis?"

When he looked back, she was still standing so alone, an unconscious body at her feet and her bloody blade in her hand. Somehow, her dress was stain-free and resplendent, and that shouldn't have struck him as entirely _her _and brilliant.

Uncertainty reined in her light features. She might not be cold, but she was good at what she did.

"Cosimo's married, and Italian besides," she said it as if it was an explanation, but it made the abyss look so very tempting instead.

She must have seen something in his expression because she flared a hand in placation and said, "No, no, he's just a letch. There's not- we didn't- look, I know what Marsac thinks of me and what happens when I'm not there, but I don't care. It doesn't matter to me."

He blinked in amazement. "But Medici was so familiar with you."

She grimaced and raised an eyebrow. "Yes, well, that's Dukes for you." Her eyes met his again and she sighed, "I might be a dutiful spy, but I'm not _that _dutiful. I sleep with a knife under my pillow and a pistol aimed at the locked door. My nights are sleepless because I'm rifling through documents, not bedsheets."

_Oh._

"But you said you wouldn't ask of me-"

"I haven't, don't, _won't _ask. You were once so convinced that I would return, and I was convinced that it would be to you." She looked away and added quietly, "I didn't think you thought me so cavalier."

That self-deprecating little smile cut him off at the knees.

Her loyalty astounded him, battered him like waves against the harbour, and all he wanted to do was drown in it. He had let her think she was anything less than wonderful, when all she had done was her duty, and _still _she had come to free him and Marsac.

"If I weren't so sure that you would slap me, _ma marée_, I would throw myself at your feet and crave forgiveness."

She snorted a laugh, her tone wry, "Well, I wouldn't begrudge you a chance to apologise."

It was too easy to step towards her, close the gap and hold her in his arms. She immediately leaned into him and nuzzled at his neck, as if she had simply been waiting, for him. "I am sorry, Amelie."

"As am I," she murmured, and he let his eyes close as he simply relished in having her near him and breathed in her brisk wind and gunpowder scent.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he said against her forehead, wanting to banish any bitter thoughts that he had put there.

"Perhaps our lives are too complicated," she sighed, and he immediately wanted to deny that train of thought.

He pulled back and held her cheeks in his hands, trying to share the light that burned so brightly for her. When she nibbled her lip, he knew she was waiting for him to fix it, because she had done so much already.

Amelie was looking for answers, and he knew what he wanted, what he had wanted since he had met her.

"Stop overthinking it," he ordered gently, thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. "What do you want?"

Mismatched blue eyes locked with his, the pale blue of duty and the darker of loyalty, and uncertainty disappeared in them both to be replaced with familiar resolve.

"You," she breathed, and he had to kiss her, feeling hope like a winged thing in his chest and anise like ambrosia on his tongue.

"I do not deserve you," he murmured against her lips, and smiled when she nipped him in reprimand. It was a fond chide, one that he savoured as the sun finally set and they were both wreathed in darkness.

She relaxed against him and tilted her face up for another kiss. "Nonsense, we are two sides of the same coin, Aramis."

"I don't like that, how will we see each other?"

Her surprised laugh was delighted and he restrained the urge to hold her closer and never let her go; for he could not control the tide, and honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Amelie was perfect just as she was.

He just wished that she would come _home _with him.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Part 2 of this 3-chapter chunk, and all the lovely, infuriating, Aramis' PoV. I hope you liked it, please let me know if you did! I seriously value every single one of you that gets into contact. It's rainy and grey here, so I'd appreciate some cheering up!

Alexandre Dumas owns the men, BBC owns the boys, I own the girl.


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